The Children of Snakes
by QueenStrata
Summary: Harry is getting ready to return for his second year at Hogwarts, but things start to go wrong before he even leaves for England. Between crazed house elves, ridiculous Gryffindors, and a startlingly incompetent (and creepy) teacher, he's starting to wish he'd just stayed home. (sequel to The Path of Flame)
1. Chapter 1: Crazy Ever After

A/N: I won't lie: the best part of this entire stupid chapter was writing Ed's arguments with Al and Winry. Otherwise I'm feeling pretty meh about this opening, but especially about the end of the chapter. Oh well. Onwards!

Chapter title courtesy of The Rescues.

P.S. if ya'll haven't been reading the side stories (under Weird and Getting Weirder), I added like…four-ish new ones. The latest one is about how Roy and Ed got together. :)

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, which is to say: Winry and Ed collide.

Disclaimer: I only own my dreams. (That's a lie. The US government owns those.)

Summary: Harry is getting ready to return for his second year at Hogwarts, but things start to go wrong before he even leaves for England. Between crazed house elves, ridiculous Gryffindors, and a startlingly incompetent (and creepy) teacher, he's starting to wish he'd just stayed home.

* * *

 _Chapter One: Crazy Ever After_

Harry bounced excitedly on his heels as the announcement for Draco's train was called over the system. His dad had a tight grip on collar of Harry's shirt, probably afraid Harry would run off if he didn't keep hold of him, but Harry didn't really mind. He hadn't heard from Draco all summer, though his dad had received a letter from Lucius saying when to expect them, so he was anxious to see his friend again. He hoped Draco hadn't decided they couldn't be friends anymore because Harry was so close to people Lucius wanted him to hate.

"Ah, there they are," Roy said just as Harry caught sight of the Malfoys himself. Draco was walking in between his parents, not holding either of their hands, and he was looking a bit nervous. Their trunks floated along behind them, which garnered them a few curious looks from passersby. Harry suspected some of them were muttering to each other nasty things about show-offs or foreigners, but if any of the Malfoys noticed they didn't make any acknowledgement of it.

"Good afternoon, General Mustang, Mr. Potter," Lucius said as he approached them, holding out one hand to shake Roy's. Roy shook it, smiling, then gestured to the cars behind him.

"I know you're not accustomed to traveling by car, Lucius, but I'm afraid Amestris has never established the extensive Floo network England has." He smiled wanly and nodded to Havoc and Fuery behind him. "My men can take your bags if you'd like to get in."

Lucius gave the two soldiers an imperious look, but nodded agreeably and led Narcissa and Draco over to the first car, where Hawkeye was standing at attention. Draco gave Harry an annoyed look as he passed, and Harry frowned as he tried to figure out why Draco would be upset with him. Hawkeye opened the door for Lucius and held out a hand to help Narcissa duck into the car.

"Gees, what a snob," Havoc muttered as he carefully floated one of the trunks into the boot of the car. Roy coughed into his hand to hide a laugh.

"The Malfoys are an old wizarding family," Fuery explained, adjusting his glasses with his off hand. "Very old, and very dark. They're probably not fond of Amestris, not with our closeness with Muggles."

"He could still be less of a dick," Havoc said.

"Lieutenant," Roy said in a warning tone.

"Sorry, chief," Havoc said instantly. "Just calling it like I see it."

"Please don't say anything to offend him," Roy sighed. "He's my only contact in the English Ministry right now, and I'd like him to remain friendly at least until I've found another one."

Harry frowned up at his dad, but Roy just fluffed his hair a little instead of explaining. Once the three trunks were securely in the car, Roy guided Harry over, while Havoc and Fuery got into the car behind them. Harry knew they would follow behind Roy's car in case something went wrong, but he wasn't sure why they expected anybody to attack the Malfoys. Especially not when the Flame Alchemist was in the car with them.

"I understand we'll be staying at your house, General?" Lucius asked curiously.

"Strangely, the military strangely looks down on us using their funds for personal reasons," Roy replied dryly. "I'm afraid we only have the one spare room, so Draco will have to share with Harry. It may be a tight fight with the six of us, but I hope it will prove satisfactory for the week."

Lucius frowned as if he didn't actually agree with Roy's assessment, but Narcissa put a gentle hand on his leg and he turned to the window without saying anything.

"It will be fine," Narcissa said for him. "Draco is accustomed to rooming with Harry by now anyway, so I'm sure he won't find it too unbearable."

Harry looked over at Draco, who had his arms crossed and was looking down at his knees, and wondered if she wasn't being a little too optimistic.

The rest of the ride home was uncomfortably silent, but thankfully it wasn't long. Harry tried not to jump out of the car as soon as it stopped, waiting impatiently for Hawkeye to open the door for them before he scrambled over his dad's legs and climbed out first. Hawkeye raised her eyebrows at him, so he stuck his tongue out at her as he heard his dad sigh behind him. Harry fidgeted as Roy climbed out of the car next and gave him a short glare, before turning to help Narcissa out of the car himself. Harry made a face at his back, and Narcissa hid a smile behind her hand.

"Harry," Roy said flatly without turning around, which meant Harry would be in trouble if he tried anything else. How did he _always_ know _everything_?

"Sorry, dad," Harry muttered unhappily.

"Tough luck, kid," Havoc whispered to him as he passed by with some of the Malfoys' luggage. Harry would have made a face at him too if he thought he'd get away with it.

Havoc left the front door open behind him as he went inside, so as Harry approached the house beside his dad, he could hear the screaming argument that was coming from the den. Lucius's eyebrow raised curiously and Draco stopped looking upset long enough to give Harry a nervous look, but Roy and Harry weren't fazed.

"I see Miss Rockbell has arrived," Roy said, then to the Malfoys he added, "she's a close childhood friend of Ed and his brother. Unfortunately, she and Ed have a tendency to clash a bit."

"'A bit?'" Lucius repeated somewhat sardonically, just as they heard something made of glass crack, followed by a loud thunk.

"Dad, can I go say hi to Winry?" Harry asked hopefully, and when Roy gave him an unimpressed look he added a bright grin to it. Roy snorted, but nodded him forward with a stern warning not to get in Winry's way. As if Harry needed to be told _that_.

He quickly kicked off his shoes in the entryway, knowing his dad would be upset if he didn't, and ducked into the den. Then he ducked a bit more literally as one of Winry's wrenches, having been thrown at _Ed's_ head, missed its mark entirely and clattered against the doorframe instead.

"Hi, Miss Winry!" Harry called, picking the wrench up and waving it at her.

"For fuck's sake, Win, can you watch where you're throwing that damn thing?" Ed snarled, stomping over to Harry and taking the wrench from him.

"He wasn't there when I threw it, and you know that!" Winry shouted back, waving an even bigger wrench in the air. "And I was aiming for your big head anyway!"

"If it's so big, then how come you couldn't hit it?" Ed mocked back, because seeing Winry always made him lose his maturity.

"Children," Roy said dryly as he entered the room with the Malfoys on his heels. Ed gave him the finger without turning around, but Winry blushed a little and tucked some hair behind her ear.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you had guests," she said contritely, with a glare aimed at Ed.

"I fucking _told_ you about them, don't act like I didn't!" Ed snapped, now waving Winry's wrench around. "It was the whole fucking reason this argument started, because I didn't want you working on my arm while they were here!"

"Well, _I_ thought you were just making up an excuse to put it off!" Winry snapped back, putting her hands on her hips. "It wouldn't be the first time you lied to get out of a check-up! How was I supposed to know you actually meant it?"

"Why the fuck would I _make up_ friends from _England_ , Winry?"

"As entertaining as this is," Roy said as Winry and Ed glared at each other across the room, "I would appreciate it if you could put the argument off until a later time. And preferably not have it in my den, or anywhere else where you may break something irreparable, like my son's head."

"Then maybe _you_ can convince him to let me look him over," Winry said irritably. "I don't care if you're only traveling for your honeymoon, I don't trust this idiot to keep himself out of trouble! I'm not going to have time to fix anything after the ceremony, so I would _like_ to get it done _tonight_."

"It's fine!" Ed snapped impatiently. "If there was something wrong with it, I'd have told you about it, you know I would've. I'm not as bad as I used to be! And it's not like I do anything that's gonna break it any more anyway."

"So you've been saying," Winry said darkly, "but you managed to break it last year, and the year before that you nearly _melted it_."

Ed blushed a little, crossing his arms and muttering something.

"Perhaps you should let her look at it, Ed," Roy said in his most conciliatory tones, walking over to his fiancé and running his hands down Ed's upper arms. Ed scowled, but leaned back into him a little, which meant he was at least listening. "You know she's just going to worry about you if you don't."

"Ugh, _please_ stop getting your sap all over my favorite wrench," Winry moaned.

"My apologies, Miss Rockbell," Roy said, straightening up and stepping away from Ed. Harry looked between all of them curiously. He knew there was some sort of tension between Winry and his dad, but he'd never found out what it was; any time he asked Ed, he'd just get a sad smile in return.

Ed grumbled a little, glaring balefully at Roy for a long moment, and then suddenly stomped his way over to Winry. Thrusting her wrench back into her hands, he muttered, "C'mon, let's just get it the fuck over with. But I'm _not_ taking off my pants!"

Narcissa let out a surprised giggle behind her hand that had Ed blushing again before he very pointedly pulled the glove off his right hand. Draco and Narcissa gasped in surprise, but Lucius just eyed Ed's false hand curiously from across the room.

"And I believe that is my cue to show you to your rooms," Roy said smoothly, stepping into their view and ushering them all toward the stairs. "Harry, come with us and show Draco your room, please."

"Yes, sir," Harry replied a little reluctantly. He was never allowed to see Winry work on Ed's automail, which was disappointing, but he kind of understood why. Even if the mechanics _were_ fascinating, it was supposed to be extremely painful to attach and use.

"Has he had his prosthetics long?" Narcissa asked as they climbed the stairs.

"Just under a decade now," Roy answered, giving Narcissa a sympathetic smile when she looked appalled. "I met him not long after he'd lost his arm and leg. It was…not a pleasant night."

Which Harry understood was actually putting it lightly. Ed had explained, a little reluctantly, that it had been his own stupid fault that he'd lost his limbs, because he'd been using alchemy he shouldn't have been. Apparently Al had nearly died, too, which meant that either he'd been too close to the array went it went off, or he'd actually been helping to power it. The idea that there was an array so powerful that the Elric brothers together couldn't control it absolutely terrified Harry, which had probably been the point of the story, but it only made him more determined to learn alchemy for himself. Even if he was never as great as his dad or Ed, at least he'd be able to recognize an array that would kill him.

"It must have been terrifying," Narcissa said with a little shudder, "to have lost two limbs so young, and then to have gotten those metal limbs attached. They don't look like any magical prosthetics I've ever seen."

"That's because the technology behind them is completely Muggle," Roy said blandly into Narcissa and Lucius's unimpressed faces. Tapping lightly at his left eye, he added, "My eye was created based on that technology, with some magical upgrades. In fact, Edward and Miss Rockbell worked together to create it themselves, using already existing magical eyes as a base."

"That sounds like quite the task," Lucius said, though he didn't sound as impressed as Harry thought he should have. "Your Miss Rockbell, she's—"

"A Muggleborn witch, as far as I know," Roy shrugged. He had to have known that the Malfoys wouldn't like that answer, but he said it as casually as he would have to any Amestrian who'd been rude enough to ask.

"Anyway, this is your room," he continued to Lucius and Narcissa, opening the door to the spare bedroom. "Don't mind the bookshelves; Alphonse, Ed's brother, stayed with us for a few years when he first went to school. Havoc and Fuery should have left your trunks by the bed, if they remembered which one belongs to whom properly. Harry, why don't you take Draco down to your room now and get him situated?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said obediently, and led Draco down to the end of the hall. Draco stayed stubbornly silent, not even thanking Roy. Once Harry had let Draco into his room, he closed the door behind them and crossed his arms, scowling at his friend. Draco glared back. "Okay, what are you so mad at me about?"

"How can you ask me that?" Draco snapped back. "You haven't answered any of my letters all summer, or Blaise's, or Pansy's!"

Harry frowned in confusion. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "I haven't gotten any letters at all this summer, even when I sent Hedwig to you!"

Now Draco was looking confused. "Hedwig never came to the manor," he said. "The elves know to take letters to whoever they're addressed to right away, and they only brought me stuff from the others. Even when father takes my letters himself, he always tells me and lets me know why, and he would've mentioned one from you."

"But if you didn't get my letter, and Hedwig didn't bring it back to me, then who got it?" Harry asked. Draco just shrugged in response, still looking a little sulky.

"…You really didn't get any of my letters?" he asked eventually.

"'Course I didn't," Harry snapped back. "Why would I lie about something like that? If I just hadn't wanted to talk to you, I'd have told you!"

Draco finally gave Harry an uncertain smile, backing up onto one of the beds—Harry's bed, of course. He bounced on the mattress experimentally, then fell onto his back and spread his arms out across it.

"Hey, this is a pretty nice bed," he said.

"Yeah, that's _my_ bed," Harry pointed out. "Yours is over there, you know, where your trunk is."

"Nah, I think I'll just sleep here," Draco said flippantly, wriggling a little as if to make himself more comfortable. Harry raised his eyebrows at him in disbelief, wondering how his friend could go from sulky to casually annoying so quickly. "I like this one better."

Harry sighed noisily, which made Draco grin at the ceiling, then took two quick steps forward, bent down to grab Draco's ankle, and yanked the other boy right off the bed. Draco made the most ridiculous noise of pain and surprise, gawking at him as if he couldn't believe Harry had just done that.

"Ed's been teaching me how to fight," Harry said blandly. "And he fights dirty."

Draco stared at him a moment longer, until Harry's lips twitched up in the smile he'd been trying to hold back. Then they were both laughing, probably more than was warranted, and Harry sank down onto the ground beside his friend so they could talk until Roy came to fetch them.

xxxxx

The wedding itself happened two days later. Everyone was up earlier than they would have liked, because it was the only way to make sure they all had time to take showers and get dressed. Harry was so nervous he had to have Draco do up his tie for him, but strangely Roy and Ed didn't seem concerned at all.

"We bought you that suit for a reason, brother!" Al yelled from downstairs, where Ed was getting ready in the den. Al had showed up early enough to make everyone breakfast and herd them through a surprisingly efficient shower schedule, but Harry strongly suspected he'd come over just to make sure Ed was properly dressed. "You can't wear those—no, I don't care how comfortable they are—brother, be reasonable! Nobody is going to let a chimera loose at your wedding!" The yelling subsided for a while as they heard several things shattering, then two loud thunks, followed by an even louder crash and the entire house shaking. "Edward Elric! If you manage to show up in leather pants, I will personally carry you out of your own wedding and _dress you myself_!"

"Merlin," Draco said, paused halfway into tugging Harry's tie around his throat. "Is it _always_ like this here?"

"Well, Al doesn't usually yell so loudly," Harry said. "Draco, my tie?"

When the two of them finally made it downstairs, they made a beeline for the kitchen where Harry knew a never-empty pot of tea sat on the stove for the British wizards. Roy was already sitting at the table, wearing his dress uniform with his hair slicked back, and was calmly sipping at a mug of coffee while he read the newspaper. Lucius and Narcissa were sitting with him, but were noticeably less calm as they heard even more interesting noises coming from the den.

"Good morning, Harry," Roy greeted warmly, and there was a huge smile on his face that he didn't seem inclined to wipe off. "Did you have breakfast yet?"

"Yeah, Al fed us before he started fighting with Ed," Harry said casually, grabbing two teacups and preparing tea for himself and Draco. He climbed up onto the chair next to his dad, peering over his shoulder at the newspaper he was reading, but lost interest when he realized it wasn't the Daily Prophet.

There was some more yelling from the den, but it sounded like it was in Xingian this time. Harry couldn't understand a word of it, but apparently his dad could, because his brow furrowed as he listened.

"Well, at least you don't know what he's saying," Roy muttered to himself. Now Harry _really_ wished Ed had taught him the language.

Finally, the argument seemed came to an end, and there was the distinct feel of alchemy in the air as the Elrics probably fixed everything they'd broken, and then Al and Ed strolled into the kitchen with unapologetic smiles on their faces. Roy made a show of pulling out his pocket watch and checking the time.

"Amazing," he said. "It looks like you aren't going to make us late to our own wedding after all."

"Shut up," Ed said fondly, grin widening as he leaned on Roy and stole his coffee. Roy sighed, but didn't protest, probably because he was too busy admiring Ed in the suit Al had actually managed to force him into. "Al thinks you'd be disappointed if I showed up in my leather pants, but—"

"Well, they would rather defeat the purpose of the military wedding," Roy interrupted pointedly, which Harry was _incredibly_ grateful for. He never wanted to know what Ed was actually going to say.

Ed pouted at him, but it disappeared when Roy pulled him down into a kiss. Harry groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"Shouldn't you two save that for the ceremony?" Al asked blandly, because he was disturbingly casual about seeing his older brother kiss Harry's dad.

"Mmm, yes, you're probably right," Roy murmured, pulling away from Ed and trying to tuck Ed's bangs behind his ears. They popped right back into place, as ornery as their owner.

Al clapped his hands once, smiled brightly at the table, and asked, "Is everyone ready to go? Your rides should be here any moment." The doorbell rang at the end of his sentence, as if Al had timed it that way on purpose.

They all trooped out to the cars, surprisingly orderly, and Hawkeye greeted them at the door with a smile. Roy and Ed followed her to the car they were taking, holding hands and leaning into each other, and Harry, the Malfoys, and Al all squeezed into Havoc's car.

"Is it always this much of a madhouse?" Lucius asked distastefully as Havoc closed the door behind him.

Al snorted. "You don't know the half of it," he said.

The ride to the gardens Roy and Ed were getting married in took significantly longer than the ride from the train station had, but this time Draco was talking to Harry, so he didn't mind. Alphonse spoke quietly with Lucius and Narcissa, half getting to know them, and half warning them what to expect at the reception.

When they finally made it there, Harry and Al had to separate from the Malfoys because they were both part of the wedding. Harry nervously darted to the front of the walkway, where Uncle Maes was grinning at them and holding the rings for Harry to give to the grooms.

"You look nervous," Maes said quietly to Harry, his warm hand on Harry's shoulder steering him into place. Harry nodded, afraid his voice would stutter if he tried to talk. "I'll bet you're worse than Roy and Ed are."

Harry couldn't stop himself from giggling due to his nerves, which had Maes grinning widely. He clapped a hand on either of Harry's shoulders, kissed him on the forehead, and then moved into his place in front of Hawkeye. Hawkeye gave Harry a reassuring smile of her own, then glared at Havoc behind her, who was fidgeting a little.

On the other side of the podium, Al and Winry were standing next to each other and talking softly, with their quiet friend Rose smiling as she listened in.

All the talking stopped suddenly when the music announcing what would normally have been a bridal party started. Elicia came down the long walkway, scattering flower petals as she went and grinning brightly at the crowd admiring her. (Ed had been dead set against having a flower girl at first, but he'd been overruled succinctly by Elicia herself, who'd announced that "it wasn't a real wedding without a flower girl, big brother!")

While she walked almost agonizingly slowly up the aisle, Harry took that moment to look around at the guests. There were quite a few people he didn't know, most of whom he assumed were from Ed and Al's travels while Ed was in the military. One blond man who looked about Ed's age was rolling his eyes at the ceremony, until what looked like his little brother gave him a sharp poke and a glare. Madame Christmas was sitting in the front row and smiling like she was in on a joke that everybody else had missed out on, but as that was her normal expression, Harry didn't think much of it. Sig was in the bench on the other side of the aisle from her, looking like he didn't quite know how to feel—which Harry couldn't blame him for, since he'd seemed much less happy since Izumi had died before Ed had turned eighteen. Granny Pinako was sitting next to him, though, and patting him consolingly on the elbow (the only part of him she could comfortably reach).

Harry tore his attention away from them when he noticed Elicia finally reach the podium and take her place across from him. Harry made a face at her to make her giggle (some of the audience laughed as well), and then the music changed again and Harry looked out to the end of the aisle with a grin. His dad and Ed, walking slowly up the aisle together to something that definitely _wasn't_ "Here Comes the Bride", were smiling more brightly than Harry had ever seen, and neither one of them seemed inclined to admire the guests like Harry had been doing. They were clearly distracted by each other, barely even looking up at the podium they were heading towards, but somehow they made it to the front without tripping over themselves.

As the music died away, they climbed onto the podium together, then turned to face each other with their hands entwined. Ed, even though he clearly hadn't been taking the ceremony seriously earlier, didn't even glance away from Roy's face once.

Harry tried to listen to the ceremony, he really did, but most of it was way too boring to pay attention to. Madame Christmas and Granny Pinako both came to the front to make some sort of sappy speeches (Harry was pretty sure that had been his dad's idea entirely), then the officiant walked them through their vows (Harry knew his dad had wanted to write his own, but Ed wasn't having it). Harry, only half paying attention, nearly jumped when he heard his cue to present the rings.

Fighting down a blush, he stepped forward to give Roy and Ed their rings. They both smiled down at him, clearly well aware that Harry had zoned out somewhere around "Dearly beloved", but didn't say anything as they took their rings from him.

Harry paid more attention now that the ceremony was almost over, mostly just thankful that he'd be able to get off the podium soon, and so he knew exactly when to look away as Roy pulled his new husband into a kiss that lasted entirely too long. He looked over at Roy's groomsmen instead.

He wasn't at all surprised to see Uncle Maes crying enthusiastically, but he bit his lip on a smile when he noticed Havoc was crying too, looking a little starry eyed. Even Hawkeye was primly dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, though she was notably more put together than her coworker was. Harry couldn't help looking toward the guests in search of the rest of Roy's team, and wasn't disappointed; Fuery was outright sobbing, Breda was wiping tears off his cheeks, and Falman was blinking rapidly to keep his tears in.

Harry really hoped somebody got a picture of all of them, because he just knew neither his dad nor Ed would ever let them live this down.

* * *

A/N: Fair warning: the next chapter goes straight into canon events, because I'm feeling strangely uninspired to write more of the summer. So this is all the time we're going to get with Draco in Amestris, and next chapter we get to meet Dobby…among other things.


	2. Chapter 2: August & September

A/N: Do you have _any idea_ how difficult it is to write Dobby's dialogue without him mentioning his name even once? Gahhhhh. Anyway, I decided that Dobby is allowed to completely misuse the royal "we" for no other reason than it entertains me. His dialogue doesn't change much from the book's, so feel free to skim it.

Sorry this chapter took so long. It's been a rough holiday season. Bleh.

The title is courtesy of a band apparently called Elbow, and I'm lolling so hard at it. I need more sleep.

Warnings: …Nothing out of the ordinary.

Disclaimer: something something something I own nothing.

Summary: Harry is getting ready to return for his second year at Hogwarts, but things start to go wrong before he even leaves for England. Between crazed house elves, ridiculous Gryffindors, and a startlingly incompetent (and creepy) teacher, he's starting to wish he'd just stayed home.

* * *

 _Chapter Two: August & September_

Harry yawned as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom, more than ready for the night to be over. Unfortunately, they'd only just finished eating dinner and Harry had to get some of his homework done before he went to bed—his dad had been keeping him so busy with alchemy training and cleaning what felt like the entire house that he'd barely had time to work on it—so he had a few hours of essay-writing to look forward to instead. He was just going to do them from the comfort of his own bed until he fell asleep.

A plan that was quite irritatingly foiled by the house-elf sitting in the middle of his bed.

Harry couldn't keep himself from staring as the little creature slid off his bed and bowed uncomfortably low. He'd never actually seen a house-elf before except in textbooks; they weren't indigenous to Amestris and there were so few old wizarding families in the country that very few people actually had one.

"Er—hello," Harry said.

"Harry Potter!" the elf said in an annoyingly high-pitched voice. "So long has we wanted to meet you, sir…Such an honor it is…."

"Uh, thanks," Harry replied. This elf must be from England, then, to be so interested in him. He wondered which of his friends had decided to send an elf to contact him in lieu of the letters he hadn't been receiving. Probably Draco. "Is there any particular reason you're here? Who sent you?"

"Nobody sent us, sir," the elf said, his bulging eyes wide with sincerity. "We has come to tell you, sir…it is difficult sir…we wonders where to begin…."

Harry bit his lip on an automatic offer to have the elf sit down. He couldn't remember whether it was rude to ask, but he knew the creatures were wizarding servants, so it was probably best not to. Instead he said, "Oh, well, I guess just wherever will get you home fastest? Your family probably doesn't want you gone for long, right?"

The elf smiled a little grimly. "The family won't miss us much, sir." he said. "We is always having to punish himself, sir. They will let us be getting on with it."

"That sounds awful," Harry said with a worried frown, and the elf's big eyes filled with tears. "It would be nice if you could just leave, but I guess your family won't let you?"

"Oh no, sir," the elf said. "We will serve the family until I die, sir."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Harry asked, unable to remember all of the rules surrounding the magic placed on the elves. To his horror, the elf wailed in gratitude, loudly enough that Harry expected his dad or Ed to come running in.

"Harry Potter asks if he can help us…We has heard of your greatness, sir, but of your goodness, we never knew…."

Harry blushed, embarrassed. "Whatever you've heard about my greatness is a load of rubbish. I'm just another kid."

"Harry Potter is humble and modest," Dobby said in a reverent tone that only made Harry's blush worse. "Harry Potter speaks not of his triumph over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named—"

"Well I was only a baby when Voldemort—"

"Ah, speak not the name, sir! Speak not the name!"

"Sorry," Harry apologized. "I always forget that people are so scared of it…"

"We heard tell," the elf said, big eyes widening even more alarmingly as he leaned closer to Harry, "that Harry Potter met the Dark Lord for a second time, just weeks ago…that Harry Potter escaped _yet again_."

"Well, I had a lot of people helping me," Harry said.

"Ah, sir," the elf said, finally dabbing the tears off his face. "Harry Potter is valiant and bold! He has braved so many dangers already! But we has come to protect Harry Potter, to warn him… _Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts_."

"What?" Harry asked in disbelief. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to talk dad into letting me go back to begin with?"

"No, no, no," Dobby squeaked, shaking his head hard. "Harry Potter must stay where he is safe. He is too great, too good, to lose. If Harry Potter goes back to Hogwarts, he will be in mortal danger."

"Why?" Harry asked, narrowing his eyes at the elf in suspicion. Maybe it wasn't Draco's elf after all. Did the Weasleys even have an elf? He knew the family was old enough to, but he wasn't certain if they were important enough.

"There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year," Dobby whispered, shaking and terrified. "We has known it for months, sir. Harry Potter must not put himself in peril. He is too important, sir!"

"What terrible things?" Harry asked. "Who's plotting them?"

The elf made a terrible choking noise, then started banging his head frantically against Harry's desk.

"Stop that!" Harry said instantly, jumping forward to pull the elf away before he hurt himself. "Okay, you can't tell me, that's fine. But why are you warning _me_? Surely Dumbledore—unless it's about Vol—ah, You-Know-Who? Don't hurt yourself again! Just—just shake or nod, maybe?"

Still trembling, the elf slowly shook his head. "Not—not _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_ , sir." His wide eyes were earnest, and Harry figured the strange emphasis on Voldemort's title was supposed to be a hint, but he had no idea what the elf was trying to get at.

"Well, I don't know who else would be trying to get around Dumbledore," Harry said slowly. He didn't entirely like the Headmaster after what he'd said to Roy at the end of the year, but he couldn't deny that the old wizard seemed powerful. "But they probably won't have much luck anyway. I'm sorry, but I've got to go back—my friends will be wondering what happened if I don't come back without even letting them know."

"Friends that don't even _write_ to Harry Potter, sir?" the house-elf said slyly.

Harry glared at him. "How do you know I haven't been getting mail from them?" he asked. Then, caught on a sudden suspicion, he asked, "Have _you_ been stopping them?"

Looking suddenly nervous, the elf slowly pulled a thick wad of mail from inside of the pillowcase he was wearing. Along with all of Draco's missing mail (and there was a _lot_ of it), he could see letters from all of his friends—even Crabbe and Goyle seemed to have sent him some.

"Harry Potter mustn't be angry with us, sir," the elf said anxiously. "We hoped, if Harry Potter thought his friends had forgotten about him, Harry Potter might not want to go back to school, sir…."

Furious, Harry made a swipe for the letters, but the elf dodged nimbly out of reach.

"Harry Potter will have them, sir, if he gives us his word that he will not return to Hogwarts. Ah, sir, this is a danger you must not face! Say you won't go back, sir!"

Harry lunged for the elf, but when he jumped out of reach again, he yelled, "Dad!" The elf gawked at him, clearly surprised, so he tried again. This time he caught the elf around the middle, and they both fell to the floor with a crash. Some of the letters flew out of the elf's hand and scattered across his bedroom floor. "Dad, there's a crazy house-elf in my room!"

Harry grinned as he heard loud footsteps on the stairs, but the elf gave him one last sad look and disappeared with a loud crack. He pitched forward toward the floor, but caught himself with a quick hand just as his dad burst into the room. Roy looked around the room with his fingers prepared to snap, and eventually his eyes landed on the letters on Harry's floor. His eyebrow raised in curiosity.

"There was an elf!" Harry said. "I caught him, but I guess elves can Apparate even when somebody has hold of them."

"Their magic is very different from ours," Roy said, reaching forward to stop Harry from grabbing his letters. He pulled out his wand and started casting spells on the nearest envelope, frowning when nothing happened. Ed sidled into the room around him and pulled Harry to his feet by the back of his shirt, frowning himself.

"Nothing?" he said.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked curiously.

"Checking to see if they've been tampered with," Roy said in a vague voice, which meant he was concentrating on the magic. Harry waited impatiently for him to finish. "And they don't seem to have been, unless there's something undetectable…"

"Nah, you'd at least be able to find Dark magic cast by an elf," Ed said casually, but he still looked tense. His grip on Harry's shirt hadn't let up, and Harry wiggled a little and pouted at him until he finally let go with a sheepish smile. "So, what'd we miss?"

"Ed," Roy sighed, shaking his head as Ed grinned back at him. "What was this about a house-elf?"

Harry frowned, but told his dad what the elf had said to him. By the end of it, both Roy and Ed were scowling.

"Are you _sure_ you want to go back to that school?" Roy asked.

"I _like_ it there," Harry insisted, ignoring the exaggerated pout he received for saying that. "Anyway, somebody probably just sent that elf as a joke or something. I'd say Fred and George, but I don't think even they'd go so far as to take my mail…."

"I have some serious questions for the person that sends a house-elf with a death omen as a joke," Ed said flatly. Harry made a face at him, then looked back up at his dad hopefully.

"You _will_ let me go back to Hogwarts, won't you?" he asked.

"I suppose so," Roy said reluctantly. "But you _will_ owl me the second something happens. Hopefully nothing does, but after last year I don't want to take any chances."

xxxxx

Harry had hoped that the encounter with the elf would be the only weird thing that happened that summer, but sadly he was proven wrong the next week when they went out to London to get Harry's school supplies. With the elf finally giving up on stealing his letters, Harry had gotten in touch with all of his friends and explained what happened, so he had managed to plan to meet a few of them in Diagon Alley, but the first ones he encountered where Fred and George in Flourish and Blotts.

His dad and Ed had wandered off to another section of the store, because that's what they _did_ in bookstores, so he ended up stuck waiting with the Weasleys, who were in line to see Gilderoy Lockhart. Fred and George were making exaggerated love-struck expressions at their mother, to Harry's amusement, so none of them noticed the photographer backing up until he stepped hard on Harry's foot.

"Hey!" Harry said, but this was a mistake. Lockhart looked up to see who was shouting, and when his eyes landed on Harry his entire face lit up.

"It _can't_ be Harry Potter!" he shouted.

Harry couldn't move backwards as the crowd parted around him, so when Lockhart dived over and hauled Harry up to the front by the arm, he looked frantically around for his dad and Ed. He couldn't see them, so he looked to Fred and George instead, but they weren't able to get through the people who had instantly closed rank around the two celebrities.

"Nice big smile, Harry," Lockhart said, shaking Harry's hand as he gave the photographer a sparkling smile. "Together, you and I are worth the front page."

When the man finally let go of his hand, Harry tried to disappear back into the crowd, but Lockhart threw an arm over his shoulders and held Harry tightly against him. Harry had to resist the urge to kick him, leery of the reaction of the crowd surrounding them.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Lockhart called, waving for quiet. "What an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I've been sitting on for some time!"

Roy finally appeared at the far side of the crowd, scowling fiercely at Lockhart, but seemed hesitant to do something. From another direction, people in the crowd were starting to mutter and shift. Harry suspected Ed was pushing through the crowd in an effort to get to him. Lockhart didn't seem to notice any of this, instead announcing that he would be the next Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and then presenting Harry with what must have been his entire bibliography. Staggering under the weight, he finally managed to escape Lockhart as he sidled around the crowd and ran into Ginny Weasley, Fred and George's younger sister. He wasn't sure where Roy and Ed were at this point, but at least he was away from the photographer.

"You don't have these yet, do you?" Harry asked Ginny, grinning a bit when she shook her head at him with wide eyes. Harry tipped the books into her cauldron, glad to be rid of the weight, and added, "Don't worry, I'll just buy my own—"

"Bet you loved that, didn't you, Potter?" Draco's voice came from somewhere behind Harry. Rolling his eyes at Ginny, he turned to his friend, who was giving him a look that was somehow amused and sneering at the same time. " _Famous_ Harry Potter. Can't even go into a _bookshop_ without making the front page."

Before Harry could reply, Ginny piped up with, "Leave him alone, he didn't want all that!"

Draco's sneering look morphed into a wide grin. "Potter," he drawled, "you've got yourself a _girlfriend_!"

Harry and Ginny both turned scarlet, and Harry punched Draco on the arm. "Shove off," he said, then to Ginny, "Just ignore him, he knows he's an arse."

"What're you doing here, Malfoy?" Ron Weasley asked as he shoved through the crowd and came to a halt at his sister's side. Draco raised both eyebrows at him, then shared an annoyed look with Harry.

"Shopping for my school supplies, Weasley, _obviously_ ," Draco drawled. "Honestly, it's much more of a surprise to see you in a shop. I suppose your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those."

"Draco," Harry frowned as Ron's face turned red and he dropped his books into Ginny's cauldron. He took a threatening step towards Draco, but Harry stepped in front of his friend and narrowed his eyes at the Gryffindor.

"Ron!" someone else called, and Harry looked up with wary eyes only to see a tall, balding man pushing through the crowd with Fred and George behind him. "What are you doing? It's too crowded in here, let's go outside."

"Well, well, well—Arthur Weasley," Lucius drawled as he appeared out of nowhere. He dropped a heavy hand on Draco's shoulder and nodded pleasantly at Harry, but there was a sneer on his face that wasn't anywhere near as friendly as Draco's had been.

"Lucius," Mr. Weasley replied with a cold nod.

"Busy time at the Ministry, I hear," Lucius continued in the same mocking voice. "All these raids…I hope they're paying you overtime?"

He dipped a hand into Ginny's cauldron and, ignoring all of the glossy new Lockhart books Harry had dropped into it, pulled out an ancient copy of _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_.

"Obviously not. Dear me, what's the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?"

Mr. Weasley's face turned a much darker red than either Ron's or Ginny's as he glared maliciously at Lucius.

"We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy," he said.

"Clearly," Lucius replied, glancing over at someone else. Harry turned to find Seamus Finnigan and his parents standing to the side, looking nervous. "The company you keep, Weasley…and I thought your family could sink no lower—"

To Harry's surprise, it wasn't Ron who threw himself forward in anger, but Mr. Weasley himself. There was a loud scuffle and a lot of noise as the two adults fought, and then above it all came Hagrid's voice—

"Break it up, there, gents, break it up—"

The gamekeeper was wading easily through the crowd to get to them, but before he made it over, the two wizards suddenly flew apart. Ed stood between them, half holding Mr. Weasley up by his collar with his other arm stretched to shove Lucius away. Both men looked extremely surprised.

"What the fuck are you two idiots doing?" Ed snapped, giving Mr. Weasley a shake. "For fuck's sake, I haven't fought in a crowded store since I was like twelve—"

Lucius, still sneering, ignored Ed entirely and thrust Ginny's book out at her.

"Here, girl, take your book—it's the best your father can give you—" And before anybody could respond, he'd beckoned to Draco and swept from the shop.

Draco grimaced at Harry briefly, looking faintly embarrassed. "Sorry," he said sincerely, before hastily following Lucius.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Ed said, clearly exasperated. He finally let go of Mr. Weasley, who stumbled back a few steps and adjusted his shirt, then put a firm hand on Harry's shoulder and turned him towards the exit. "C'mon, I told Roy to wait outside—he's fucking useless around this much flammable shit—but you know he'll come in anyway if we take too long."

Harry said a quick goodbye to Fred, George, and Ginny, then led the way out of the store. The assistant stepped in front of them to prevent them from leaving, but at a glare from Ed he quailed back into the piles of books.

"Is everything alright?" Roy asked as Ed and Harry reached him. He reached out to pull Harry closer to him, a concerned look on his face, but smiled when Ed snorted impatiently.

"Just the wizards being fucking stupid again," Ed muttered. "Have I mentioned that I hate this country?"

"Not in at least several months," Roy replied with a cheeky grin, which earned him an eyeroll from his husband. "But perhaps we should get going, hm? Dinner isn't going to make itself."

xxxxx

September first was, to put it lightly, a comedy of errors. Harry honestly couldn't say what part of the morning made them so late—was it Hedwig refusing to get in her cage, the burning and subsequent purchasing of breakfast on the go, or maybe just his dad's alarm clock deciding not to go off?—but they ended up at King's Cross even later than they had the year previous.

"Have you noticed that all of your attempts to get us somewhere on time fail?" Ed asked as they ran for the platform; unlike Roy and Harry, he barely seemed winded by the rush. "That's gotta be a really bad sign in a general."

Roy glared at him, but didn't otherwise dignify Ed's teasing with a response. They were coming up on the entrance to the platform just as Fred and George were disappearing through the wall, and he instead chose to give Mrs. Weasley a brief smile.

"Go on ahead with your daughter," he said. "I'll have your son come through afterwards with Harry."

"Thank you, General," Mrs. Weasley replied, grabbing hold of her daughter's hand. The two of them bustled off, and once they'd disappeared, Harry and Ron gave each other unhappy glares.

"Let's make a run for it," Harry muttered. "And you can pretend you didn't get stuck with me."

Ron snorted, but with one minute until the train left, apparently decided it wasn't worth arguing about. The two of them started off at a brisk walk, but a few feet from the barrier, Ron broke into a nervous-looking run. Harry matched his pace, grip tightening on the handle of his trolley as they approached it—and gave an undignified yelp as the two of them crashed straight into the wall.

"What in blazes d'you think you're doing?" a nearby guard yelled over the sound of Hedwig's indignant screeching.

"Lost control of the trolley," Harry gasped, clutching his aching ribs. Not that he really need have bothered; the guard was already slinking away in the face of Roy's glare. As Roy knelt down to see if either Harry or Ron were badly hurt, Ed picked up Hedwig and leaned on the barrier to soothe her.

"Why can't we get through?" Harry asked quietly, squirming uncomfortably as Roy checked to make sure his ribs were only bruised.

"Dunno," Ron said, looking around the station with wide eyes. "It's never supposed to close down—"

"Something's sealed it shut," Ed said darkly as he came back over to them. He paused briefly to pick up Ron's trunk with his automail hand and settle it back on the trolley. Ron gawked at him, but the rest of them ignored him. "I could probably get it open again, but not without the Muggles noticing."

"It's too late anyway," Roy said, shaking his head. "It's after eleven—the train will have left by the time you'd fixed it anyway. Dammit."

Harry's eyes widened in surprise. His dad _never_ cursed.

"You have that meeting today, don't you?" Ed said sourly. "Look, let's just go have lunch somewhere like we planned originally, and then you head back. I can sidealong with both of them."

"The distance will be a bit much even for you, Ed," Roy said with a worried frown. "I don't know if you'll make it home after that."

"Figure I'll just make the old man give me a room again," Ed shrugged. "Or crash somebody's couch. You _know_ you've got to get to that meeting—"

"I'm sure I could make them understand—"

"Yeah, like they'd ever forget, though," Ed snorted. "And with your reputation they'll probably think you skived off for a f—uh, for other reasons."

"Ed, _really_ ," Roy said exasperatedly, with a nod at Harry's disgusted expression. But he was still giving Ed a worried frown, and Ed rolled his eyes.

"Stop being an overprotective idiot for one fucking second, Mustang," Ed said impatiently, giving the taller man a sharp poke in the sternum. "Do you have any better ideas? One that _doesn't_ get you in trouble for skipping a stupid meeting?"

Roy's frown only deepened, but it was obvious that he didn't have a better plan to offer. Harry sighed as the two of them stubbornly stared at each other, and picked up Hedwig's cage to settle it firmly back in place. Hedwig just ruffled her feathers at him and gave off the distinct impression of a glare.

"Let's find somewhere to shrink the trunks first," Roy finally sighed. "And send Hedwig off to the castle so someone will meet you at the gate."

Ed didn't seem to find anything wrong with that plan, and they finally managed to leave the station with little fuss. They ducked down a tiny side road that didn't seem to have any traffic, and Ed scribbled out a quick (and probably illegible) note to someone at Hogwarts as Roy shrunk Ron and Harry's luggage and had them tuck it into their pockets.

"I could just stay here," Ron said slowly, his eye on an old car nearby. "My parents will probably come out soon enough, right?"

Roy snorted. "I am not leaving a twelve year old wizard unsupervised in Muggle London," he said shortly. Ron glared up at him defiantly, but Roy just continued with, "And don't even try arguing," and the boy wisely subsided.

Which was how Harry found himself having lunch with his least favorite person at Hogwarts. Ron was probably the least pleasant person Harry had ever shared a table with, glaring at everything and refusing to participate in any of the conversation happening around him. Roy and Ed shared a look that was more amused than anything, but not even Ed seemed to think it was necessary to get Ron to loosen up.

But no meal could last forever, and finally they were ducking down an even smaller and dirtier side road that looked like it hadn't seen a human being in years. Roy wrapped Harry in a tight hug that lasted long enough Harry started to squirm in discomfort.

" _Dad_ ," he finally said, exasperated, and Roy obligingly backed off to smile sadly down at him.

"Be careful," he said softly, his voice worried. "I know I've told you a hundred times, but-"

"Send Hedwig if anything bad happens or I get hurt, I know," Harry said.

"And next time, don't interrupt me," Roy frowned, but ruffled Harry's hair playfully, so he wasn't actually upset. Harry made a face at him. "I want to hear from you in a week as well, okay? I love you."

"Love you too," Harry said, grinning. Then he looked away as his dad turned to Ed, not wanting to see them kissing even if he couldn't tune out his dad being sappy at his husband. Ron even gave him a sympathetic look that nearly made Harry laugh.

Finally, with a soft popping noise, Roy disappeared. Ed sighed and walked over to Harry and Ron, wrapping his right arm around Harry's shoulders and holding his left hand out to Ron.

"Take my hand and don't let go," he said seriously. "This is gonna suck for all of us."

Ron gave Ed an uncertain look, but took his hand; Ed tightened his grip on Harry's shoulders, took a deep breath, started to spin lightly on his heel and-CRACK!

Harry's eyes winced shut as he felt a great pressure squeezing him from all sides, preventing him from breathing, and just as he swore his head would messily implode-

They were on the grass outside the Hogwarts gates, Harry feeling very nauseous, Ron collapsing at Ed's side and clapping a hand over his mouth-and Ed fell abruptly to one knee, a tight expression of pain on his face that didn't match the gentleness he was holding onto Harry with.

"Ed?" Harry asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," Ed said, blatantly lying. Harry poked him. "Okay, I'll _be_ fine, gees. You're as bad as your dad."

"And how terrible it must be for people to care about your well-being," a dry voice said, and Harry looked up to see Professor Snape soundlessly opening the gates. To his surprise, Snape knelt down in front of Ed, gently tilting the younger man's head up and inspecting his eyes. "Well, no permanent damage appears to have been done. Pity."

Ed huffed out a laugh. "You have a seriously terrible bedside manner," he said. "And that's coming from me."

"Clearly I haven't missed my calling as a Healer," Snape said flatly, pulling two vials out of an inner pocket of his robes. He pressed one of these into Ron's hands and, after a moment's hesitation, handed the other one to Ed. "For the children's nausea. Drink it, Weasley."

Ron stared at Professor Snape suspiciously, and though he still looked green, he didn't make any move to drink the potion. Smiling faintly, Ed finally let go of Harry to open the potion Snape had handed to him and give it a cursory-looking sniff.

"Go ahead," he said, handing the potion over to Harry, though he was clearly addressing Ron. Harry didn't hesitate to drink his, and felt instantly better for it. He handed the vial back to his professor gratefully. Ron scowled, eyeballing them all suspiciously for a long moment. "Seriously," Ed said impatiently, "just fucking drink it, or puke and get it over with. Harry, help me up."

Harry scrambled quickly to his feet, then grabbed Ed's right arm. Snape grabbed his left, and between the two of them, they managed to pull Ed up. Once he was standing, though, Ed seemed to be mostly fine, ruffling Harry's hair and starting off for the school at a slow stroll. Harry followed on his heels, still worried; he wasn't used to seeing Ed so exhausted from doing, well, anything.

"I'll show you to the room the headmaster had prepared for you," Snape told Ed as they walked. "The Feast isn't for a few hours yet, if you'd care to join the school."

"We'll see," Ed said vaguely. "Might be passed out."

"Can I come by while we wait for dinner?" Harry asked, and Ed gave him a suspicious look.

"Did Roy tell you to keep an eye on me while I wasn't paying attention?"

Harry grinned. "Nope. But I have nothing to do until the Sorting if I don't."

"I knew you were gonna be a pain in the ass when I met you," Ed said, sounding amused. "At least you continuously prove me right."

* * *

A/N: This chapter was totally going to be longer but…eh. I got bored writing the scene where Harry explains to his friends why he wasn't on the train and Ed's at the castle, so I figured ya'll'd be just as bored reading it. I figured some snark and teasing was a better place to end it. Anyway, next chapter is going to be…honestly, wayyyy too much Lockhart. Ugh.

Re: Ed getting exhausted sidealonging Harry and Ron to Hogwarts: pretty sure it's canon that there's a sort of limit on the distance a wizard can travel via Apparition. Personal theory is that it takes too much magical power to travel long distances, and I'd imagine doing sidealong Apparition would take more power than just teleporting onself. So Ed is just exhausted from transporting three people a long distance.


	3. Chapter 3: Poison

A/N: In trying to figure out a vague sort of class schedule for the Slytherins to follow, it has come to my attention that Rowling can't possibly have used a calendar while she was writing these books. For instance, Valentine's Day in 1993 was a Sunday. But the Gryffindors had class. Unless this is normal in England for some reason? IDK. Anyway, I did the best I could.

Chapter title courtesy of Alice Cooper because _why wouldn't I_?

Warnings: Most of this chapter is Creevey and Lockhart. I'm sorry.

Disclaimer: I am so happy I don't own any of this. Really. I am.

Summary: Harry is getting ready to return for his second year at Hogwarts, but things start to go wrong before he even leaves for England. Between crazed house elves, ridiculous Gryffindors, and a startlingly incompetent (and creepy) teacher, he's starting to wish he'd just stayed home.

* * *

 _Chapter Three: Poison_

Ed did make it to the feast that night, but he slept through the next morning instead. Then he sat with Snape for lunch, the two of them leaning in close for a soft conversation that had the attention of the entire Hall. It was clear that not all of the students remembered Ed from the Leaving Feast at the end of last year; Harry could definitely hear the beginnings of a rumor that Ed was Snape's boyfriend, which had Draco and Pansy beside themselves with laughter.

"It's not funny!" Harry insisted, though his traitorous lips were trying to smile as well. "Dad would _kill_ him!"

"Yeah... _if_ he thought Professor Snape was stupid enough to go after his husband," Blaise said dryly.

When lunch was over, Harry walked with Ed out to the front gates so he could share the rumor about him bring Snape's boyfriend. Ed had to pause for some minutes to laugh himself breathless, and there was a mischievous glint in his eye that Harry knew meant Roy would be hearing about this. It almost made him regret telling Ed; would he be indirectly responsible for the death of his Potions professor? (Probably not.)

He gave Ed a quick hug at the gate before he Apparated away, then ran back to the courtyard where his friends were waiting for him. He'd just settled into place between Draco and Pansy when he got the distinct feeling he was being watched, and he looked around to find a mousy-haired Gryffindor first year staring at him with wide eyes. The boy was fiddling nervously with the settings of an old Muggle camera, so it took him a moment to realize that Harry had noticed him, but when he did he instantly flushed red.

"All right, Harry? I'm—I'm Colin Creevey," he said, taking a tentative step forward even though several other students were urging him not to. "D'you think—would it be all right if—can I have a picture?" He raised the camera hopefully.

"A picture?" Harry repeated blankly, while his friends started snickering.

"So I can prove I've met you," Colin Creevey said eagerly even as his face flushed to an even brighter shade. "I know all about you. Everyone's told me about how you survived when You-Know-Who tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything and how you've still got a lightning scar on your forehead and a boy in my dormitory said if I develop the film in the right potion, the pictures'll _move_." He'd said this all in one breath, and now he breathed in deeply before continuing excitedly. "It's _amazing_ here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe it either. So I'm taking loads of pictures to send to him. And it'd be really good if I had one of you"—he looked imploringly at Harry—"I was hoping maybe I could stand next to you? And then could you sign it?"

The request for a signature seemed to be the last straw for his friends. Pansy cracked up entirely, burying her face in Blaise's chest as if it would disguise the sound of her cackling, while Blaise hid his face behind one hand with an odd squeaking noise. Draco alone seemed to be able to hold his laughter in.

"Oh, _do_ go on, Potter," he drawled loudly, catching the attention of several other students in the area. "You wouldn't want to disappoint your fans, would you? Just look at that darling little face!"

"And think of the future," Blaise added in a strangely high-pitched voice. "You could print out a bunch of them and make it a collector's item!"

"I really don't think so," Harry said coldly.

Draco affected a hurt expression. "You wouldn't sign a picture even for your best friend?" he asked in an injured voice, dramatically putting a hand over his heart. "And I was so looking forward to passing it down the generations, the Malfoy family's most treasured heirloom—"

"Oh, come off it—" Harry began angrily, but was cut off by a loud, jovial voice he recognized all too well.

"What's all this, what's all this?" Gilderoy Lockhart asked brightly, striding over in flashy turquoise robes that even Ed would have been appalled by. "Who's giving out signed photos?"

"Nobody—" Harry started hurriedly, but the man seemed not to have heard him.

"Ah, Harry, of course—I should've known!" He flung an arm tightly around Harry's shoulders and turned to Colin Creevey with his sparkling grin. Harry's _completely useless_ friends cracked up anew, even Draco unable to hold in his laughter this time. To Harry's horror, quite a few of the second year Gryffindors had congregated at the commotion, and, judging by the redhead's disgusted expression, whatever strides towards friendship Harry had made with Ron had clearly disappeared. Only Hermione and Neville were looking sympathetic as Harry's face flushed in embarrassment when Lockhart urged Colin to take the picture and promised a signature from both of them.

He was pleased when the bell rang just as Colin took his picture, thinking he could finally escape Lockhart, but unfortunately his professor just shooed everyone else away. Harry squirmed uncomfortably, trying to at least make him let go, but the grip on him only tightened.

Finally, even Draco reluctantly started off for the Greenhouses, promising to make Harry's excuses to Professor Sprout, and Harry was unpinned from Lockhart's side. Instead the man held him at arm's length, the tips of his fingers digging into Harry's shoulders not quite hard enough to hurt, and his extraordinarily white teeth sparkled extra brightly in the gloomy air.

"Harry, Harry, Harry," he said.

Harry, focused on resisting the urge to kick him and run (kicking professors was Not Appropriate Behavior), scowled up at him and said nothing.

"I could just kick myself." ( _Please do_ , Harry thought.) "I should've known, when I pulled you up for that picture, that this would've happened. Gave you a taste of publicity, didn't I? Gave you the _bug_."

"Oh, no, sir, I—" Harry tried desperately to explain, but Lockhart clearly wasn't listening.

"But listen here, you can't just start giving out signed pictures at this stage of your career!" And Lockhart actually removed a hand so he could shake a finger at Harry. Completely bewildered, Harry just stared up at him. "When you're as famous as I am, well, you'll have to carry around stacks of the things as a matter of course, but right now, Harry, you should keep your head down. I covered up for you so your schoolmates won't think you're setting yourself up too much, but I won't always be around, you understand?"

It took Harry a long moment to figure out how to talk again. "Of course, sir," he finally said, because clearly the man wouldn't accept any other answer. "I understand completely. Can I go down to Herbology now? Only I don't want to miss my first class..."

"Of course, of course. And if Professor Sprout gives you a hard time, let her know I just wanted a word, Harry. I'm sure she'll understand." And with one last disconcertingly bright smile, he finally strode off for his classroom.

Harry wasted no time running full-out across the grounds, skidding to a stop near greenhouse one. Just as he was about to enter, he noticed a burst of energetic motion out of the corner of his eye; looking over, he saw Pansy waving at him from in front of greenhouse three instead.

"Professor Sprout asked me to wait out here for you," she said in a rush, pulling him towards the door. "Hurry up, we're supposed to be repotting Mandrakes and she said we can't start until everyone's there-"

They ducked quickly into the humid greenhouse, where the class was huddled around tables covered in potting soil. Harry noted that it was a double when a few of the Ravenclaws turned to point and snicker at him, but he doggedly ignored them as he and Pansy settled into place at their table with Draco and Blaise.

"Sorry, Professor," Harry said to Sprout with complete sincerity. "Professor Lockhart wanted a word, and I couldn't get away—"

"Maybe if you weren't so busy with your fan club, Potter—" one of the Ravenclaw boys started loudly, making Harry flush in embarrassment, but thankfully Sprout didn't let him finish.

"That will do, Mr. Corner," she said more sharply than was her usual manner. "Mr. Potter, I won't take any points because you were delayed by another professor, but see that it doesn't happen again.

"Now, who wants to refresh our memories on why we need to take precautions with the mandrakes?"

Ignoring the class entirely, Draco leaned over with a worried look. "What did he want?"

"He thinks I'm trying to be a celebrity," Harry muttered angrily. "Told me I was getting ahead of myself. He's a nutter, I'm telling you."

"He creeps me out," Draco murmured back, but their conversation was cut short as there was a sudden rush for the earmuffs, and by the time they could talk again Draco was distracted by his usual complaints about Herbology instead.

xxxxx

Harry didn't have his first Defense Against the Dark Arts class until Friday morning, so he was given plenty of time to dread it. He and his friends still managed to be the first ones in the class, and Lockhart gave Harry a broad grin and a thumbs up as he entered. Blushing uncomfortably, Harry made a beeline for the very back of the room, despite Blaise's obvious reluctance, where he carefully piled all of his textbooks on the table in front of him so he wouldn't have to see his professor's annoying smile. Draco helpfully started adding his own books, but stopped when Lockhart cleared his throat.

Harry peered hesitantly around his pile of books just in time to see his professor grab Daphne's book off her desk and hold it up.

"Me," Lockhart said, pointing at his portrait on the front of the book and winking in tandem with it. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of _Witch Weekly_ 's Most-Charming-Smile Award—but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by _smiling_ at her!"

He waited for them to laugh; a few students managed to force out obviously-fake snickers, but Lockhart seemed heartened by them.

"I see you've all bought a complete set of my books—well done. I thought we'd start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about—just to check how well you've read them, how much you've taken in—"

Despite himself, Harry found himself feeling hopeful at this announcement. Maybe, despite all his other obvious failings, Lockhart would prove to be at least a halfway-competent teacher? This was a promising start. He watched as the professor handed out a stack of test papers, then returned to the front of class. "You have thirty minutes—start— _now_!"

Harry finally looked down at his paper and his heart sank as he read the questions. There were fifty-four, and every single one of them had Lockhart's name in it. Harry didn't think he could answer a single one of them; he hadn't paid attention to the bits about the author when he'd thought he was supposed to be taking notes about the dark creatures he'd defeated!

A long half hour later, Lockhart collected the papers and started rifling through them at the front of the class. He tutted over the inability of the class to get most of the answers correct, seeming to be completely oblivious to the expressions of disgust and bafflement he was receiving from most of the students. Finally he came to the end of his monologue, and shook his head in disappointment.

"Well, let's see who's gotten the most right..." he said vaguely. "Ah, Mr. Blaise Zabini and Ms. Daphne Greengrass, very close to perfect scores—I'll give you five points each to Slytherin, how's that? Now—down to business!"

Most of the class shared excited looks; this was the part they'd actually been looking forward to. Rumors had abounded of the Gryffindors's first class, saying that Lockhart had released a cageful of pixies on them that had destroyed the room. Hermione Granger had apparently been left to catch them all herself, and hadn't seemed put out by it at all.

Unfortunately, this experience seemed to have turned Lockhart off bringing live creatures to class. Instead of bringing out a cage, he instructed them to open up their books. He seemed to have them memorized entirely; he had them open _Gadding with Ghouls_ and proceeded to read out passages from it without seeming to actually look at one himself. It was one of the most exceedingly dull classes Harry had ever sat through in his life, and he wasn't looking forward to an entire year of it.

xxxxx

That night, Slytherin held tryouts for the Quidditch team out on the dark pitch. Not having a broom appropriate for playing competitive sports on (his dad had actually laughed at him when he'd hesitantly asked to take the Comet), Harry had planned on skipping them entirely despite his promise to Draco last year. But his friend brought up a very convincing argument for him to at least come out.

"Father bought the whole team new Nimbus 2001s," he said, holding out his own shiny new broom as if for proof. "They only get them if I get on the team, of course, but you know a good broom is only worth as much as the person flying it. I want you to try out for Seeker. I can stomach being a Chaser then."

Harry still hesitated for another long minute. His dad would probably prefer that he didn't join the Quidditch team, and not just because it would distract him from his studies. Quidditch players got injured a _lot_ , and this wasn't any different for students; even worse, Draco was asking him to try out for the position that got fouled and hurt the worst.

On the other hand, if he made the team (and that was a big if—he was only a second year, after all), he would be getting his own racing broom. And not just any broom, but the latest model on the market, so new that it hadn't even been on display when he'd been in Diagon Alley over the summer.

"Can I use your broom for tryouts?" he finally asked, more eagerly than he'd planned, and Draco grinned brilliantly at him as they started heading out of the dormitory. They were joined by more than a few other students, most of them upper years, who looked askance at the two second years in their midst. Draco held his head high, staring haughtily back at them, but Harry gave them embarrassed smiles until they looked away.

Finally, they made it out to the grounds, where all of the current team members and Professor Snape were waiting. It seemed that they were currently down two Chasers and the Seeker, but that didn't keep Marcus Flint, the team captain, from sneering at them all as if he thought they'd be better off playing with only half a team. Harry eyed him somewhat nervously, not really liking the look of him, but Draco nudged him forward relentlessly. They all settled into a vague sort of line facing the team, and Flint went off into a long-winded spiel that would've had Harry rolling his eyes if he wasn't worried about it hurting his chances of getting on the team.

Afterwards, Flint had them split into two groups—one for the people trying out for Chaser, and one for those trying out for Seeker. Harry nervously separated from Draco, trying to look confident as he stood with the few other students trying out for Seeker, and watched with growing impatience as Flint slowly whittled down the prospective Chasers. In some instances, the hopeful player had barely gotten off the ground before Flint was impatiently yelling him off the field, but a lucky few got to stay out for some time and even play alongside Flint a little bit. Surprisingly, Draco actually did turn out to be one of the better players; not only did Flint fail to yell him off the field, he actually gave Draco an approving nod at the end.

Then it was time for the Seekers to try out. The first two students had good brooms, but clearly didn't know how to handle them, nearly getting knocked off by Bludgers. The next student managed to avoid them, but was unable to catch most of the ping pong balls Flint was throwing in random directions to substitute for the Snitch. Then it was Harry's turn, and he heard a couple of snickers from the students still hanging around as he took Draco's broom. Pointedly ignoring them, he mounted the broom and raised his eyebrows at Flint, silently urging him to get on with it.

Flint smirked nastily back at him, leaning over to say something to Bole, who was one of the Beaters, and then finally gestured for Harry to get up in the air.

He didn't need to be told twice. His heart leapt in excitement as he kicked off and felt the ease with which the Nimbus 2001 picked up speed and responded to his movements, and he was able to fly halfway across the pitch before Derrick and Bole had even gotten the Bludgers back out. It wasn't long before he could feel the first Bludger come careening towards him; he waited as long as he dared before he dodged it, spinning around and flying back down the pitch quickly enough that Derrick's attempt to hit him flew right by. Then Flint was finally flinging tiny balls across the field for Harry to catch, and even with the Bludgers zooming around the Pitch, he didn't miss a single one.

When he finally landed, he had to stifle a grin at the impressed looks he was getting from a few of the other students. Even Professor Snape, standing in the middle of the Pitch with his arms crossed, was wearing a grimly satisfied sort-of-smile, though it disappeared as soon as he noticed Harry looking towards him.

"That your first time on a Nimbus, Potter?" Flint asked. He alone was managing to keep a severe face, but Harry wasn't impressed. Nobody did unimpressed deadpan quite like Hawkeye.

"Yeah, my dad has a Comet, but he won't buy me a good broom," Harry said humbly.

"Didn't you say he laughed at you when you asked?" Draco asked with a mischievous look, and Harry glared over at him.

"He probably wouldn't want me playing Quidditch," Harry said, and the pout on his face wasn't even exaggerated. "But if I get on the team, he'll get over it."

"Well, we'll let you whoever got on the team know in the morning," Flint said grudgingly, turning away from Harry to address the rest of the remaining hopefuls as well.

There was some grumbling from the students who had clearly been hoping to be informed that very night, and then they all slowly dispersed to return back to their common room. Draco threw an arm around Harry's shoulders, grinning as he took his broom back.

"If Flint doesn't pick you I may quit out of protest," he said.

xxxxx

Harry and Draco woke up at sunrise the next morning, and hastily threw on their clothes so they could run down to the common room. They were joined by a few other students milling about and discussing the Quidditch tryouts. Harry was pleased to overhear people sharing similar sentiments to Draco's from the night before; apparently he was a shoo-in for the Seeker position.

"I _told_ you," Draco said smugly, though he couldn't hide his own anxiety. The Chaser position was the most popular one, and some of the older students who had tried out were displeased by the idea of a second year getting the spot. Harry thought Flint would be stupid not to choose Draco, though. Nimbus 2001's weren't exactly easy to come by, and most of the team were still flying Comets as well. Considering the Slytherin team's preference for cheating instead of winning by skill, it might help them to have the best brooms available.

Finally, Flint came down and gathered the team together. Everyone who had tried out crowded hopefully around them, and the burly captain smirked around at all of them. Harry almost rolled his eyes again. Flint was enjoying his strange little power play entirely too much.

The room was nearly silent as Flint started going into some speech that Harry couldn't be bothered to pay attention to, though Draco was listening seriously, and he almost jumped when his name was barked out.

"…You've got the position," Flint finished saying to him. "Lucky for you Draco's father gave the team a gift this season—but you already knew that, didn't you?"

Harry shrugged casually, finding no reason to deny this. It was the only reason he'd tried out at all, after all.

"Well, let's get moving then," Flint said, finally hopping up from his seat and grinning meanly at his three new teammates. "Got a lot of training to get you lot up to par."

The team followed Flint out to the Quidditch Pitch. Nobody said much to Draco or Harry, who were easily the youngest and smallest members of the team, so they trailed back towards the end of the line, yawning but pleased. The sun had just finished rising as they approached the field, and Harry found himself frowning uncertainly as he noticed that they weren't the only ones out there. He couldn't see well passed the hulking figures surrounding him, but the bright red robes of the Gryffindor team were hard to miss.

It wasn't long before they were noticed, and one of the Gryffindors streaked down to the field with his teammates lagging slightly behind him. "Flint!" the older boy bellowed. "This is our practice time! We got up specially! You can clear off now!"

Harry and Draco were shoved slightly behind the rest of the team as the Slytherins lined up in front of the opposing captain.

"Plenty of room for all of us, Wood," Flint said nastily.

"But I booked the field!" Wood spat back. "I booked it!"

"Ah," Flint said calmly. "But I've got a specially signed note here from Professor Snape. _'I, Professor S. Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to practice today on the Quidditch field owing to the need to train their new members.'_ "

"You've got new members?" Wood asked immediately. "Where?"

The boys in front of Harry and Draco split apart, and they could finally get a good look at the Gryffindors. They were standing across from them without much organization; the three girls on the team were huddled together a slight distance behind all of the boys, who were spread out haphazardly. None of them looked very pleased.

"Harry?" Fred asked in surprise. Harry gave him an apologetic sort of grimace, then shrugged. He wasn't sorry about having gotten on the team, but he _was_ embarrassed by his teammates' smug actions.

"And _Malfoy_ ," George added sourly.

Flint and the rest of the team looked even more smug at the mention of Draco's name. "And let me show you the generous gift Draco's father has made to the Slytherin team."

Harry was the only one who didn't hold out his broomstick for the Gryffindors to see. He did roll his eyes now that he was certain his new captain wasn't paying an ounce of attention to him, though.

"Very latest model. Only came out last month," Flint continued lazily. "I believe it outstrips the old Two Thousand series by a considerable amount. As for the old Cleansweeps—sweeps the board with them."

The Gryffindors all stood speechless for a long, tense minute.

"Oh, look," Flint said. "A field invasion."

Ron and Seamus were sprinting across the field to find out what was going on, and if anything they looked even less pleased than the team did. Ron glared furiously at Harry and Draco.

"What're _they_ doing here?" he asked.

Somebody nudged Harry as if they thought he would actually join in with the ill-natured teasing, but he stayed stubbornly silent. They must've poked Draco too, though, because Draco took a step forward, smirking almost as smugly as Flint.

"Harry and I got on the Slytherin team, Weasley," he said. "Everyone's just been admiring the brooms my father's bought our team."

Even Ron and Seamus gaped at the Nimbuses.

"Good, aren't they?" Draco asked. "But perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and get new brooms, too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives; I expect a museum would bid for them."

Harry snorted, but the rest of his teammates absolutely howled with laughter. Honestly, this was getting out of hand; it was almost enough to make him regret giving in to Draco's request.

"Doesn't mean you'll do any good," Seamus said sharply. "Expensive brooms won't make up for your lack of talent."

Draco shot him a scathing look. "What would _you_ know about talent, Mudblood?"

" _Really_ , Draco?" Harry snarled, yanking Draco backwards as Flint dived in front of them. Fred and George had jumped furiously towards him, their intent obvious, while Finnigan yelled about being a Half-blood, as if that made any difference. Ron had reached for his wand, though, and he poked it under Flint's arm. Harry hadn't expected much would happen, but a bright red light shot from the tip and threw Draco clear off his feet. Harry pulled out his own wand, moving in front of his friend as he snapped out the first spell that came to mind. The edge of Ron's sleeve caught abruptly on fire, and he shouted and pulled back, some of the Gryffindor team crowding around him to try to get the fire out.

"Come now, what's all this?" a cheerful voice yelled out from behind the Slytherins. Harry nearly pointed his wand at Lockhart as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor came up to them at a jog, but managed to pull himself back at the last moment. "What d'you lot have to be fighting about this early in the morning?"

"Malfoy called me a Mudblood!" Finnigan snarled. Even Lockhart looked shocked by this announcement, turning to look at both Draco and Harry. Harry scowled back at him, but didn't say anything.

"Now that's just uncalled for, Mr. Malfoy," Lockhart scolded. "And, Harry, I expected better of you! Detention for the two of you, and Mr. Weasley as well—now, now, don't look at me like that. Fighting is against the rules! And thirty points from Slytherin for that language of yours. Now, why don't you all just try to get along, hm?"

And with that said, he strolled off without making sure the altercation was actually over. Thankfully, Wood seemed it best not to risk any more trouble; he gathered the Gryffindors together and, with one last dirty look over his shoulder back at Flint, herded them off the field.

xxxxx

Harry and Draco received notes near the end of lunch letting them know what their detentions were—apparently Lockhart didn't believe in delayed punishments. Draco groaned as he read aloud that he'd be polishing trophies without magic all night, but Harry thought his friend had gotten the better punishment.

"Professor Lockhart has me helping him answer his fan mail," Harry said, unable to keep the horror he felt from creeping into his voice. It was almost bad enough news to make him forget about being angry with Draco. "Do you think he'd let us switch? I had plenty of practice cleaning this summer."

"Neither of us could be that lucky," Draco replied gloomily, poking at the rest of his pie without much interest.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a tense silence as Harry sat with his Slytherin friends doing homework. Draco was inclined to complain about the punishment, which wasn't much of a surprise, but Harry wasn't having it. He reminded his friend several times that it was Draco's own fault that they were in this mess due to his bigotry, until finally they got into a screaming argument and settled into seats as far away from each other as possible. Pansy flitted nervously after Draco with a worried look, but Blaise just stretched out into the freed area and looked drowsily up at the ceiling.

"You two are the best entertainment in this place," he said. Harry balled up a piece of scrap parchment and bounced it soundly off his head.

Then it was time for Harry and Draco to head off for detention, and they pointedly ignored each other as they climbed out of the dungeons. They parted silently at the top of the stairs, and Harry dragged his feet reluctantly until he found himself on the other side of Lockhart's office door. He hesitated briefly, but finally forced himself to knock. The door flew open at once, and Lockhart stood beaming down at him.

"Ah, here's the scalawag!" he said, not noticing the annoyed look Harry was giving him. "Come in, Harry, come in—"

Unsurprisingly, Lockhart's office was adorned with an obscene amount of pictures of himself, which shined almost as brightly as his teeth in the candlelight. If Harry looked at any of them straight on, the portrait would grin cheekily back and wink. The scent of lavender permeated the room, making Harry's nose crunch up in distaste—perhaps his professor had meant it to provide a more relaxing atmosphere, but all Harry could think about was getting the smell out of his hair later.

"You can address the envelopes!" Lockhart said brightly, handing Harry a large stack of them. He seemed to think that he was giving Harry something of a treat, babbling on in a one-sided conversation about his countless female fans. More than once, Harry had to give himself a sharp shake when the parchment in front of him began to blur because he was zoning out. It was a little bit harder to pull himself back to full wakefulness each time, and finally he found himself working on autopilot. He wrote out names and addresses without them ever seeming to stop in his brain, and all the while he could feel the eyes of every one of Lockhart's portraits watching him. He wondered idly when the real Lockhart would finally notice Harry's lack of attention.

Then a new sound filtered into his hearing—a chilling voice so cold and venomous that it penetrated straight through the haze that had settled over him.

" _Come…come to me…. Let me rip you…. Let me tear you…. Let me kill you…._ "

Harry nearly jumped out of his seat, his hand jerking across the envelope and leaving a long streak straight through whatever he'd been writing.

" _What?_ " he asked loudly, looking almost desperately around the room. Lockhart leaned sharply back in his seat.

"I know!" the professor said obliviously. "Six solid months at the top of the best-seller list! Broke all records!"

Harry didn't even spare him an irritated look. "No," he said urgently. "That voice!"

"Sorry? What voice?" Now Harry did turn his attention to Lockhart, frowning as he took in the man's puzzled expression.

"Didn't you hear it?" he asked suspiciously.

"What _are_ you talking about, Harry?" Lockhart asked, his eyebrows raising sharply above his wide eyes. "Perhaps you're getting a little drowsy? Great Scott—look at the time! We've been here nearly four hours! I'd never have believed it—the time's flown, hasn't it?"

Harry didn't bother to answer. He was trying to hear the voice again, but the only sound he could hear now was Lockhart cheerfully babbling as he ushered him briskly out of the room. Feeling dazed, his previous grogginess settling in again, he stumbled off to the dungeons.

Draco was already in bed and asleep by the time Harry got in, and he briefly considered waking his friend to tell him about the voice. Then he remembered their argument from earlier, and decided instead to just change and go to bed. It wasn't long at all before he was asleep, and that night he didn't dream at all.

* * *

A/N: Okay but seriously, the biggest regret I'm going to have for this ENTIRE STORY is letting Harry play Quidditch. Why, self? Why!?


	4. Chapter 4: Sonnet 130

A/N: All my feels this week. All of them. 2016 needs to stop already.

Chapter title was originally "A Message", courtesy of Coldplay. In honor of Alan Rickman's death, even though this chapter has literally nothing to do with the title, I've renamed it to the Shakespeare sonnet Rickman recited for an album called When Love Speaks. If you haven't heard it, do yourself a favor and Google it. It's available (several times) on Youtube. (Next chapter will be titled from a Motorhead song, in honor of Lemmy, and chapter six already has a David Bowie title. I'm not sorry. It's been a rough week.)

Warnings: …Nothing? Hm. I'm slacking. (I take that back: mild violence and Ed-level cursing.)

Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING. Including some parts of this chapter, which were ripped straight from the book. AS YOU DO.

Summary: Harry is getting ready to return for his second year at Hogwarts, but things start to go wrong before he even leaves for England. Between crazed house elves, ridiculous Gryffindors, and a startlingly incompetent (and creepy) teacher, he's starting to wish he'd just stayed home.

* * *

 _Chapter Four: Sonnet 130_

In the month following his argument with Draco, Harry found himself spending more time with his Gryffindor friends than he'd ever expected to. Fred and George rarely had time to hang out with him, preferring the company of their older friends, but Hermione and Neville were more than pleased to spend their free hours keeping Harry entertained. Hermione mostly wanted to study, but Neville took it on himself to try to improve their chess games. Harry was somewhat skeptical of this working—if Roy Mustang couldn't teach him how to strategize, no teenager had a chance—but he enjoyed those afternoons the most. Chess was one of the few things Hermione didn't seem to have a talent in, and he liked to see bumbling, disaster-prone Neville fall into a state of calm confidence as he directed his pieces across the board.

Much less peaceful were the hours he spent in the company of his Slytherin friends. Draco was often in a sulky mood, snapping at Harry more than was warranted, and Pansy was a little too enthusiastic in taking his side of any argument. Blaise was Harry's only saving grace, keeping Draco and Harry from arguing too much with his relaxed attitude.

Not that it always worked. Harry's mood was always at its lowest around Halloween, and Draco's attitude was getting irritating on even his best days. So it probably shouldn't have been a surprise when another heated argument about Draco's bigotry broke out during the Halloween feast. Neither the good food nor Blaise's impatient attempts to get between them managed to calm it down. In fact, Draco got fed up with Blaise too, for "always being on Harry's side" and left the table; Harry followed doggedly after him, still scowling.

"Harry!" Hermione's voice called as he was following Draco down the hall. Harry turned to find her jogging up to him from a side corridor, Neville huffing noisily at her side.

"What do _you_ want, Granger?" Draco asked sourly as she came to a halt in front of Harry. Hermione barely spared him a look.

"Oh, Harry, you should've been there with us!" Hermione exclaimed, eyes bright. "We were just down in the dungeons with Sir Nicholas—Nearly-Headless Nick, you know, the Gryffindor ghost—because it turns out it's his four-hundredth deathday. The ghosts were having a party too, it was really fascinating, I can't imagine many live people have ever been to one—Neville and I left to see if you'd like to come down for part of it too!"

But Harry had stopped paying attention to her. He was distracted by the sound of a voice that he'd nearly convinced himself he'd imagined.

"… _rip…tear…kill_ …"

It was hissing just as maliciously as it had been the night of Harry's detention, and Harry found himself looking up and down the dark hallway for its source.

"…Harry?" Hermione said with some confusion. "What are you doing?"

"That voice—didn't you hear it?" All three of his friends stared blankly at him.

"… _soo hungry…for so long…_ "

"Listen!" Harry said urgently, hoping one of them would hear something as well. Their faces didn't change when it came again, even though Harry's heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest.

"… _kill…time to kill…_ "

The voice was growing fainter, moving straight up. Harry looked towards the ceiling, but he still couldn't see anything—how in the world was this voice getting around? Was it a ghost of some sort? But then a ghost wasn't _able_ to kill a person, and he'd never heard one sound half as evil.

"This way," he said urgently, darting back past the Great Hall and up the staircase to the first floor. Hermione and Neville followed at his heels, but he wasn't sure where Draco had gone. Hermione tried to talk again, but Harry shushed her and strained his ears, hoping—

"… _I smell blood…I SMELL BLOOD_!"

Harry's heart leapt into his throat.

"It's going to kill someone!" he gasped, and even though Hermione and Neville were now staring at him with concern, he bolted up the next flight of steps trying to catch up to the voice again. They ran across the entire second floor, but he didn't hear it again.

"Harry, what's going on?" Hermione asked as Neville leaned against the wall to catch his breath. "I couldn't hear a thing—"

"Look!" Neville interrupted urgently, pointing at something down the corridor. They approached cautiously, squinting in the flickering torchlight to see foot-high words painted across the wall.

"THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED," they read. "ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE."

"What's hanging underneath?" Neville asked timidly, shaking so much that Hermione and Harry both grabbed hold of him. It was a good thing they did—as the three of them edged closer to the wall, Harry almost slipped in a puddle of water on the floor. Then he and Hermione were dragging Neville back as they suddenly realized just what the shadow beneath the words was.

"Oh, Merlin," Neville moaned, sounding sick. Mrs. Norris was hanging by her tail from a torch bracket, stiff and dead-looking.

"…Let's get out of here," Hermione said after a long moment, but it was already too late.

Students, fresh from the long feast, began spilling into the corridor from either end, chatting happily. It was a long moment before the ones in front spotted the hanging cat—and Harry, Hermione, and Neville standing alone and scared in front of it. Draco eventually pushed through to the front of the crowd, face even paler than it usually was as he stared in shock at Harry. Wordless and petrified, Harry couldn't do anything but stare silently back.

"What's going on here?" a voice interrupted the tableau. Argus Filch, the Hogwarts caretaker, was pushing through the crowd as well, looking irritated at the students in his way. When he finally caught sight of Mrs. Norris, he fell back in horror. "My cat! My cat! What happened to Mrs. Norris?"

When his eyes fell on Harry, a terrifying expression crawled over his face.

" _You!_ " he screeched. " _You!_ You've murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll kill you! I'll—"

" _Argus!_ " a much different voice snapped, and the students parted as Dumbledore marched down the corridor with several of the teachers following him. The old headmaster swept passed the trio frozen in front of the wall, and easily detached Mrs. Norris from the bracket.

"Come with me, Argus," he said to Filch in a kindly sort of voice. "You too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Longbottom, Ms. Granger."

"My office is nearest, Headmaster," Lockhart said, stepping forward eagerly. "Just upstairs—please feel free—"

"Thank you, Gilderoy," Dumbledore said, and lead the way up the stairs to Lockhart's office.

Movement across the walls of the room made Harry jump, but he was relieved to see that it was just several of Lockhart's photographs dodging out of their frames with their hair in curlers. The teachers ignored them as Lockhart quickly lit the candles and stepped back to watch Dumbledore put Mrs. Norris on his desk and lean forward to examine her. McGonagall bent over the cat as well, her eyes narrowed as she watched Dumbledore prod her, while Snape loomed silently in the shadows behind the desk with his grim almost-smile. Lockhart was uselessly fluttering around all of them, talking a mile a minute as he spoke about the many experiences he'd had that would have prevented Mrs. Norris' death.

The person Harry couldn't help paying attention to the most was Filch, though. The man had sunk into a seat to sob into his hands, and despite Harry's dislike of him and his cat both, he felt very sorry for him. It was clear that Filch had nobody but his cat, and the loss of his only friend wasn't going to be easy for him.

Which might explain why he'd accused Harry, of all people, of being the one to kill her.

"She's not dead, Argus," Dumbledore finally said, straightening up at last to give the caretaker a soft look.

"Not dead?" Filch asked in a choked voice, peering at Mrs. Norris from between his fingers as if he was afraid to look at her head-on. "But why's she all—all stiff and frozen?"

"She has been Petrified," Dumbledore replied, with Lockhart exclaiming his agreement in the background. "But how, I cannot say…"

"Ask _him_!" Filch snarled, pointing a trembling finger at Harry.

"No second year could have done this," Dumbledore said firmly. "It would take Dark Magic of the most advanced—"

"He did it, he did it!" Filch spat angrily. "You saw what he wrote on the wall! All these little Slytherin brats are the same, and who knows what he might have learned in _that_ country!"

"I never _touched_ Mrs. Norris!" Harry said loudly, angry at the insinuation that his dad would have taught him Dark Magic. Just because he was from Amestris—and what was wrong with his country anyway? "Dad would never teach me anything like that!"

"Rubbish!" Filch said. "You all know what the Amestrian military is like!"

"If I might speak, Headmaster," Professor Snape said. Harry eyed him with some trepidation; it was no secret that Snape hated him, and he wouldn't be surprised if whatever he had to say made things worse.

"Potter and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time." Snape didn't look as if even he believed that. "But I must admit we have a set of suspicious circumstances here. Why was he in the upstairs corridor at all? Why wasn't he at the Halloween feast?"

"He _was_ at the feast, Professor," Hermione said earnestly. "Neville and I were at Sir Nick's deathday party, but we left to ask him to join us—he and Malfoy were walking out of the Great Hall just as we came up. He wouldn't have had _time_ to Petrify Mrs. Norris!"

"I believe the party is being held in the dungeons," Snape said flatly. "Why would you be coming upstairs at all?"

None of them had an answer. Harry shared a nervous look with Hermione and Neville, which set Snape to smiling nastily at them.

"I suggest, Headmaster, that the children are not being entirely truthful," he said softly. "It might be a good idea if they were deprived of certain privileges until they are ready to tell us the whole story."

"Really, Severus," Professor McGonagall said, giving her coworker a narrow look. "They may well have just been going for a stroll before returning to the dungeons. There is no evidence at all that any of them has done anything wrong."

But Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look, his face expressionless. Harry stared back at him stubbornly, scowling.

"Innocent until proven guilty, Severus," the headmaster finally said, his voice final. Snape didn't look particularly pleased by this remark.

"My cat has been Petrified!" Filch shrieked, looking even less happy than Snape. "I want to see some _punishment_!"

"We will be able to cure her, Argus," Dumbledore said in the same soft tone he'd been using all night. "Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made that will revive Mrs. Norris."

"I'll make it," Lockhart said immediately. "I must have done it a hundred times. I could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep—"

"Excuse me," Snape said icily. "But I believe I am the Potions master at this school."

Dumbledore turned to Harry, Hermione, and Neville in the awkward silence that followed. "You may go," he said.

The three of them left the room quickly, and nearly ran into Draco in the hallway. He gave Harry an anxious look, then dragged them all back down to the second floor and shoved them into an empty classroom. The door closed silently behind them.

"D'you think I should have told them about that voice I heard?" Harry asked when his friends just stared wordlessly at him.

"No," Neville said quickly. "Hearing voices nobody else can hear isn't a good sign—it's just weird."

"I know it's weird," Harry said impatiently. "The whole thing's weird. What was that writing on the wall about? _The Chamber Has Been Opened_ …. What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's about the Chamber of Secrets," Draco said. Something in his voice made Harry turn to him, and Harry was surprised to see the fear in his eyes. "It was last opened fifty years ago, father told me about it. And when it was, a Muggleborn witch—died."

His eyes flitted nervously over to Hermione, who was looking pale and worried in the dim light.

"But what _is_ the Chamber?" she asked. "And whose heir is it referring to?"

"Salazar Slytherin's, of course," Draco said, sounding surprised that he had to tell her. "He didn't want to teach children from non-magical families, because he thought they would tell the Muggles and then they would get scared and attack the school. It's really not a far stretch—" But Hermione was giving him an unimpressed look, and he trailed off nervously. "Anyway, they said he created a Chamber that only he could open, and put some sort of monster in it. It would only be released when his true heir returned to the castle, and then the school would be purged of everyone Slytherin found unworthy of learning magic."

"Then why was Mrs. Norris attacked?" Neville asked, confused. "And why was she only Petrified instead of killed?"

Draco shrugged uncomfortably; he'd clearly ran out of answers.

They all looked up as a clock chimed.

"Midnight," Harry said reluctantly. "We'd better get going before one of the teachers finds us."

The four of them quietly left the deserted room and split up to go to their separate Houses. Draco and Harry walked in an awkward silence, neither of them looking at each other, until finally they'd made it back to their nearly-empty common rooms.

"Are you going to tell your dad about tonight?" Draco asked, crossing his arms and looking uncomfortable.

Harry stared at him for a moment in surprise; he hadn't even thought of owling his dad yet. But Roy would obviously want to know if there was something traveling around the school that could Petrify animals, and maybe he or Ed would have some idea about the voice….

"I don't think you should," Draco continued. "Even he might be concerned about you hearing voices and I don't—I don't want you to be taken out of the school."

Harry smiled a little. That was probably the closest he would get to an apology from Draco for the way he'd been acting lately, and it made him feel a little better.

"He won't take me back to Central," he said with more confidence than he actually felt. "It's too late to get me into a good school at home, and anyway he _knows_ I want to stay here. It'll be fine."

Draco didn't look convinced, but he still followed Harry down to their dormitory in a silence that had lost all of its previous tension.

xxxxx

Harry did end up sending Hedwig out with a letter the next day, letting his dad know what had been going on, and it was with some relief that he received a reply letting him know that he could stay at Hogwarts. He showed this to Draco with a smile. Over the next few days, their friendship returned to normal, and even Blaise looked relieved by the lack of arguing at dinner. Feeling relaxed for the first time in weeks, Harry would have completely forgotten about what had happened Halloween night if it weren't for a particularly curious event.

He'd been leaving the library at a rush, already late for lunch, and had nearly run over one of the Hufflepuff second years. They were usually nice to him (they were nice to _everyone_ ), so he'd been opening his mouth to say hi and apologize when the boy gave him a terrified look and bolted off in the opposite direction. Staring curiously after him, he shook his head and continued on into the Great Hall.

"Hiya, Harry!" Colin Creevey called on his way out the door with a gaggle of other first years surrounding him.

"Hi, Colin," Harry said a bit tiredly. The boy was full of energy and had taken to saying hi to Harry every time they met in the hallways. He was just grateful that they were in different Houses and didn't see each other much.

"Harry—Harry—a boy in my class has been saying you're—"

But he was being pushed away from Harry by a few of his nervous-looking friends, and was soon out of view.

An unpleasant suspicion was coalescing in his head, and as he walked over to the Slytherin table he took to observing the students he passed. A few of them smiled at him, but not as many as he would have expected. Instead, most of his classmates hurriedly looked away from his gaze or darted out of his path, as if they were afraid of him.

Heart sinking, he sank onto the bench beside Draco and poked at the food that no longer looked appetizing.

"What's wrong?" Blaise asked, peering at him from across the table. "You're not ill, are you?"

"No," Harry said with a sigh. "Just disappointed. Have you noticed everybody acting weird around me? Like they're suddenly afraid of me?"

Draco, Blaise, and Pansy shared nervous looks that made Harry's lips thin. His friends had clearly noticed what Harry was just starting to note, but he suspected none of them had wanted to bring it up to him.

"They're probably just worried Filch will start in on them about Mrs. Norris if they look too friendly with you," Pansy said.

"Filch has been attacking everyone already," Harry pointed out. "And Colin Creevey was just trying to tell me something his classmates had been saying about me. I think—I think they think that _I'm_ Slytherin's heir."

"That's ridiculous," Blaise said flatly. "If you were his heir, you wouldn't be running around with Granger and Longbottom all the time."

"People will believe anything," Pansy said in a disgusted tone.

"Don't think about it," Draco advised him. "It'll blow over soon enough when nothing else happens. Just think about how satisfying it will be to beat the Gryffindors this weekend instead!"

The thought of playing Quidditch actually did manage to cheer Harry up, and he found himself eating lunch with more enthusiasm as he and Draco discussed what they knew of the Gryffindor team. Pansy sighed in a long-suffering way but made no actual complaints. Possibly this was because she was just pleased by Harry's lack of sulking, but by the way she was listening in it was clear that she was interested as well.

Finally Saturday came, and the excitement in the school for the first match of the year was palpable. Harry sat nervously at breakfast with his confident team, eating little and envying Draco his calm. As Harry was always pretty quiet around them, his teammates didn't think much of it.

A quick pep talk in the locker rooms later, Flint was leading the Slytherin team out onto the pitch. The cheering from the crowd was soft, with what seemed like the whole school hoping to see Slytherin defeated, and the tension between the two team captains was obvious.

"On my whistle," Madam Hooch said. "Three…two…one…"

The piercing sound followed Harry as he shot up into the sky as high as he dared, hovering over almost all of the other players as he searched for the Snitch. The only one who followed him was the Gryffindor Seeker, who seemed to think his best bet was to tail Harry's better broom.

Harry didn't have much time to be annoyed by this, though. A heavy Bludger came shooting out of nowhere, with Bole close on its tail, and Harry narrowly avoided them both. He watched with some satisfaction as Bole gave the Bludger a whack and it zoomed off in the direction of Angelina Johnson, who was holding the Quaffle—but then he was dropping sharply as the black ball changed direction for no obvious reason and came hurtling back towards Harry again. Bole knocked it towards the Gryffindor Seeker this time, but it didn't have much effect; the Bludger just swerved in a sharp arc to shoot at Harry again.

Heart in his throat, Harry put on some speed and flew as fast as he could toward the other end of the pitch. The Bludger seemed undeterred, whistling along behind him until he reached Derrick.

"There!" Derrick grunted as he knocked the ball away from Harry, but once again the Bludger veered off course to go after him.

A cold rain started up, and Harry hunched over his broom with frustration. Though he could hear Lee Jordan commenting on the Slytherin's heavy lead in the game, he wasn't entirely certain what was going on in the rest of the field. The rogue Bludger was doing its level best to knock Harry off his broom, and Derrick and Bole were taking turns flying around him to get the thing off his tail.

"We need a time out to deal with this thing," Bole finally snarled, signaling to Flint as he hit the Bludger again. Thankfully, Flint was paying attention; a second later, Madam Hooch's whistle rang out, and the team all dived for the ground.

"What's going on?" Flint demanded, glaring at Bole and Derrick. Both of the Beaters were scanning the sky for the Bludger that had been attacking Harry, but it seemed the ball was taking a time out as well. "Bole, we needed you a minute ago—Katie Bell almost got a goal!"

"Someone's fixed the other Bludger," Bole replied urgently. "It won't go after anyone but Potter."

"Who the hell would do that?" Flint asked sourly. "And how? Those things have been locked up in Hooch's office for ages; nobody would be able to get to it!"

Harry, looking past his team captain to the rest of the field, noticed Madam Hooch walking briskly toward them and frowned.

"Listen," he said quickly, "I'm never going to get to the Snitch with you two flying so close to me. I can deal with the Bludger myself."

"Don't be thick," Derrick snapped. "It'll kill you."

"We should ask for an inquiry," Draco said in a worried tone.

"But then we'd have to forfeit the match!" Harry protested angrily. He wasn't even worried about getting hurt—he'd already proven to himself that the Nimbus 2001 was faster than the Bludger. "We're not losing because of a stupid ball."

Madam Hooch joined them before anyone could say anything else. "Ready to resume play?" she asked Flint.

Flint glanced over at the determined scowl on Harry's face and nodded curtly.

"Let Potter deal with it," he said to Derrick and Bole.

A minute later, they were all back up in the air, and Harry was racing back and forth across the field as he dodged the Bludger. He could hear laughter from the crowd, and he knew he must look incredibly stupid, but the heavy ball couldn't move with the dexterity his broom could. And at least he could still see; through the thick rain and the blur of his own movement, he squinted around the Pitch furiously.

"What are you doing, Potter?" The Gryffindor Seeker yelled at some point, as Harry spun around and nearly flew into him in order to avoid the Bludger again. Harry ignored him, darting by the startled boy just quickly enough to dodge another attack. Then he looked back in frustration, wondering how nobody seemed to notice the Bludger that wouldn't leave him alone—and he saw the Snitch. It was flying in a lazy spiral right beneath the other Seeker, who was looking in another direction.

Harry hesitated, trying to decide what to do. If he suddenly dived the other Seeker might look down and see the Snitch as well, and with that kind of head start, there was no way Harry would get to it first.

He hadn't yet decided what to do when he felt the impact—the Bludger had made another attack while he wasn't paying attention, and slammed soundly into Harry's elbow. His arm broken, he nearly slid off his broom with the loss of balance. The ball turned around to dive at him again. Dazed by the pain, Harry wasn't able to think of anything but getting to the Snitch—he dived towards the other Seeker desperately.

"What the—" the Gryffindor gasped, dodging out of the way. Harry could hear him cursing afterwards, streaking after Harry as he realized what was going on, but it was too late. Taking his good hand off the broom, he reached out and snatched determinedly at the Snitch, which felt frozen and slippery in his hand. Now only gripping the broom with his legs, he lost most of his control, and barely managed to slow himself down enough that he didn't kill himself when he landed hard on the muddy ground and rolled off the broom.

A smile twitched painfully across his face. "We've won," he said vaguely to himself, and then darkness closed in.

He couldn't have been out of it long. When he grudgingly peeled his eyes apart, he noticed he was still laying on the muddy ground with rain dripping in his eyes. The first thing he saw was a glittering white smile.

"Oh, no, not you," he moaned, trying to roll away but unable to move.

"Doesn't know what he's saying," Lockhart said to the students surrounding them. "Not to worry, Harry. I'm about to fix your arm."

" _No!_ " Harry said sharply, thinking only of his dad's reaction to the upcoming disaster. "It's fine the way it is—"

An annoying clicking noise filtered into his hearing as he tried to move again.

"I don't want a photo of this, Colin," he said loudly.

"Lie back, Harry," Lockhart said in a disturbingly soothing voice. "It's a simple charm I've used countless times—"

"Just take me to the hospital wing!" Harry protested loudly.

"We really should take him to Madam Pomfrey," Flint said, though he didn't seem inclined to argue too strongly with his professor. "But that was a great catch, Potter—"

"Stand back," Lockhart interrupted as he rolled up the sleeves of his expensive green robes.

"Don't—" Harry tried, but nobody was listening. Lockhart twirled his wand and directed it at Harry's arm, and an unpleasant sensation set up in his shoulder. He didn't dare look as it spread down to his fingertips, but he knew it was bad when Colin's camera started clicking crazily. The good news was that his arm didn't hurt any more. But it didn't feel much like anything else, either.

"Ah," Lockhart said, his voice momentarily showing a hint of uncertainty. "Yes. Well, that can sometimes happen. But the point is, the bones are no longer broken. That's the thing to bear in mind. So, Harry, just toddle up to the hospital wing—ah, Ms. Parkinson, Mr. Zabini, would you escort him?—and Madam Pomfrey will be able to—er—tidy you up a bit."

Harry took a deep breath as he got to his feet, then grit his teeth and looked down. His arm looked unreal and rubbery, and he felt vaguely nauseous as he tried to move his fingers and nothing happened. Lockhart had successfully removed every bone in his arm.

Maybe he could get some automail like Ed instead.

xxxxx

Harry woke up in the infirmary some hours later, a sharp stabbing pain in his arm. Madam Pomfrey had given him a bottle of Skele-Gro and kicked everyone out of the hospital wing, shouting about how Harry had thirty-three bones to regrow. Harry wished she hadn't—regrowing bones was a painful process, and without the Slytherin Quidditch team and his friends around, he had nothing to distract him from the pain.

That was the least of his worries right now, though. It seemed somebody had snuck back into the wing in the dead of night; they were carefully sponging his forehead in the dark.

"Get off!" he said in alarm, and then, " _You!_ "

The house-elf that had stolen his letters over the summer was staring back at Harry, his gigantic eyes watery and a tear running down his nose.

"Harry Potter came back to school," he whispered miserably. "We warned and warned Harry Potter. Ah sir, why didn't you heed us? Why didn't Harry Potter go back home when he missed the train?"

Harry heaved himself up with one arm, and angrily pushed the elf away.

"What're you doing here?" he asked. "Don't tell me it was _you_ who closed the barrier!"

"Indeed yes, sir," the elf said earnestly. "We hid and watched for Harry Potter and sealed the gateway and we had to iron our hands afterward, but we didn't care, sir, for he thought Harry Potter was safe, and _never_ did we dream that Harry Potter would get to school another way! We was so shocked when we heard Harry Potter was back at Hogwarts, he let his master's dinner burn! Such a flogging we never had, sir…."

Harry slumped back into his pillows, his anger fading away. It was useless to be mad at the house-elf, who clearly thought he was doing the right thing, and thinking about how he had been _beaten_ was making Harry nauseous.

"Harry Potter _must_ go home!" the elf said suddenly into the silence. "We thought his Bludger was enough to make—"

" _Your_ Bludger?" Harry asked, anger spiking again. "What d'you mean _your_ Bludger? Are you trying to kill me?"

"Not kill you, sir, never kill you!" the elf insisted earnestly. "We wants to save Harry Potter's life! Better sent home, grievously injured, then remain here, sir! We only wanted Harry Potter hurt enough to be sent home!"

"And I don't suppose you'd tell me _why_?" Harry asked.

"Terrible things are to happen, sir, terrible things are happening already," the elf said. "And we cannot let Harry Potter stay here now that history is to repeat itself, now that the Chamber of Secrets is open once more—"

Looking horrorstruck, the elf suddenly grabbed Harry's water jug from the bedside table and cracked it over his own head; Harry shouted in alarm as he topped out of sight, but a second later he was crawling back onto the bed.

"Ask no more of us, Harry Potter," he moaned piteously. "Dark deeds are planned in this place, but Harry Potter must not be here when they happen—go home, Harry Potter, go home!"

"I won't," Harry said fiercely. "One of my closest friends is Muggle-born; I can't leave her if the Chamber really is opened—"

But the elf didn't seem to be paying attention any longer, his head tilted as if he was listening intently to something else. A second later, Harry could hear it, too. Somebody was coming down the passageway outside.

"We must go!" breathed the elf, and disappeared with a large cracking sound. Harry fell back into his pillows again, closing his eyes halfway as he stared at the door. Dumbledore backed in through the doorway not a moment later, carrying what looked like a statue with Professor McGonagall's help.

He listened with growing horror as the two professors talked, wondering what could possibly have _melted_ a roll of film, and at the end of it he came out with only one clear conclusion.

Headmaster Dumbledore knew most of what was going on, and wasn't bothering to tell anybody else.

When he woke up the next morning, bright sunlight was streaming in through the infirmary windows, and he automatically tried to raise his right hand to block it from his eyes. His arm was extremely stiff, though, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he realized that it didn't really hurt any longer. Apparently, his bones had been successfully regrown as he slept.

Colin's bed had been blocked off by a privacy curtain, but Harry barely noticed as he caught sight of the figure in the chair beside his bed. Ed was staring pensively out the nearby window, twirling his wand between his fingers, but he turned quickly when Harry sat up and looked around for his dad.

"He's not here," Ed said, smiling a little when Harry's face fell. "Not by choice, obviously. I thought he was going to have a fit when Hawkeye reminded him that he couldn't blow off his meeting with the ambassador from Xing, but at least I could get away."

"Why's he working on a Sunday?" Harry asked unhappily. Ed made a face.

"Just some shit with the military," he muttered. "Don't worry about it." Then he leant forward in his chair, tucking his wand back into his jacket, and scowled. "Tell me how you lost all the bones in your arm."

"I didn't _lose_ them," Harry sulked. "We had our first Quidditch match yesterday, and a Bludger broke my arm—it wouldn't leave me alone all match, that house-elf from the summer messed with it—and Professor Lockhart was the first one to get to me. He said he was going to fix it."

"How fucking incompetent can he be?" Ed grumbled. "Roy was already fretting about you getting hurt. He's gonna be even worse when he finds out the teachers here can't even fucking fix a broken arm."

"Madame Pomfrey would've been able to," Harry said. "But Lockhart wouldn't let me come to the hospital wing."

Ed's scowl deepened further, and his fingers tapped fitfully at the metal arm of the hospital chair. It clunked dully back at him.

"I think I'll be talking to your professor," he said eventually, the growl in his voice punctuated by the rhythmic sound of metal on metal. The grin that stretched across his face was cold and extremely unpleasant, and Harry eyed it nervously. "And let him know just what's coming to him for fucking with my family."

Harry honestly couldn't decide whether or not he was worried about Lockhart's impending death.

* * *

A/N: Now just imagine Ed's conversation with Lockhart, and smile in satisfaction.

I usually try to respond to all of the reviews people send me on each chapter (well, the people who are logged in), but I just don't have the energy to this week. So this is a thank you to everyone who's been reading this story, and letting me know they like it one way or another. If anybody needs me, I'll be over here stress-baking.


	5. Chapter 5: Nothing Up My Sleeve

A/N: I was going to give this one last edit before posting it, but then I was looking at all the words and I was like "eh". So if there's any mistakes, it's entirely the fault of my own darn laziness. 8D

Chapter six is like half done already but, uh, I may have caved recently and bought the first season of the original FMA series…so…it's been nice knowing you guys….

In honor of Lemmy Kilmister's death, this chapter is titled after a Motorhead song. (I never listened to much of the band's music—his voice annoyed the heck out of me—but I can't deny their influence in a LOT of my favorite bands. So.)

Warnings: This is almost entirely book stuff, but with mild changes. Also, my feels on Dumbledore start to show.

Disclaimer: I own, uh…this really adorable pocket planner that I put my work schedule in? It has a kitten on it!

Summary: Harry is getting ready to return for his second year at Hogwarts, but things start to go wrong before he even leaves for England. Between crazed house elves, ridiculous Gryffindors, and a startlingly incompetent (and creepy) teacher, he's starting to wish he'd just stayed home.

* * *

 _Chapter Five: Nothing Up My Sleeve_

Colin Creevey's Petrification was the only thing the students talked about for weeks. Everywhere one looked, they were huddling in terrified groups to swap rumors and protective amulets, and the first years were the worst of all. They traveled the castle in packs as if they were terrified that they would be the next attacked if they walked off alone. Ginny Weasley, who was friends with Colin, looked more distraught than anyone else, which wasn't helped by Fred and George doing their best to scare her into cheering up. Harry tried to tell them to stop, but nothing worked until their older brother Percy threatened them with their mother. Only one of the first years seemed content to wander around dreamily by herself, but when Harry worriedly asked about her, he was assured that nobody would bother to attack Loony Lovegood.

"I don't like it," Harry said to Draco as he watched Professor Snape walk around collecting names of those who would be staying for break. Draco looked askance at him, but was distracted by Snape approaching them with the clipboard. The professor's lips thinned in disapproval when Draco signed the parchment and Harry politely declined. "It's like they don't even care if she gets attacked—even Hermione and Neville always have somebody to go with them!"

Draco didn't share his concern. "She'll be fine," he said dismissively. "There hasn't been an attack in ages, has there? And they're probably right anyway, if there's one person that's pointless to attack it's a Lovegood."

Harry wished, not for the first time, that he was more familiar with the wizarding population of England. Draco was always making comments like that, as if Harry should know _why_ Lovegoods weren't worth worrying about.

Fortunately, his mind was soon taken off the lonely Ravenclaw by a piece of parchment that had recently been pinned to the notice board in the entrance hall.

"Dueling Club?" Pansy said distastefully.

"I don't know, it might be useful," Blaise said thoughtfully. "Not in school, maybe, but once we're out on our own…."

"I already know how to duel," Harry said pointedly, but couldn't help looking back at the sign himself. He knew there were a few different schools of dueling, and it was possible he might pick up something new from an English wizard that Roy and Ed wouldn't teach him. "Though it might be interesting if it's different from Amestrian fights…."

The decision seemed to be made even with Harry's ambivalence toward the club, and at eight o'clock that night he found himself crowding into the Great Hall with most of the rest of the school. The Hall looked strangely empty without the usual dining tables that filled it, but the large golden stage that had replaced the professors' table glittered cheerfully in the candlelight.

"D'you think it'll be Flitwick?" Pansy asked with interest, bouncing on her toes to see around a particularly tall Ravenclaw in front of them. "I'd heard he was a dueling champion when he was younger."

"Apparently not," Blaise said drily a moment later. Harry groaned miserably as Lockhart walked onto the stage with his usual grin, Professor Snape following serenely behind him.

"Gather round, gather round!" Lockhart called, waving for silence. "Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!

"Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourself as I myself have done on countless occasions—for full details, see my published works."

Harry snorted unpleasantly. He spent most of his time avidly trying to _forget_ Lockhart's books.

"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape. He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry—you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

"I don't doubt it," Blaise muttered. Snape's upper lip was curled as he looked at Lockhart, and it was clear he was planning to humiliate the other man.

The two professors turned to face each other and bowed, or at least something similar. Harry wasn't certain what all the hand-twirling Lockhart was doing was supposed to mean, and Snape merely jerked his head in something more like a nod. Then they raised their wands like swords in front of them.

"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position," Lockhart said to the silent crowd. It almost felt as if he was actually teaching them something useful. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course."

Snape bared his teeth unpleasantly.

"One—two—three—"

Both of them swung their wands above their head and pointed them at their opponent, and Snape cried " _Expelliarmus!_ " before Lockhart had so much as opened his mouth. A flash of scarlet light shot from the tip of Snape's wand, and Lockhart was blasted off his feet. Some of the students cheered as he smashed into the wall and slid to the floor.

Lockhart was on his feet a moment later, somewhat unsteady as he patted shakily at his hair.

"Well, there you have it!" he said cheerfully, climbing back onto the platform. "That was a Disarming Charm—as you see, I've lost my wand—ah, thank you, Miss Brown—yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy—however, I felt it would be instructive to let them see…."

Snape was giving Lockhart a look that promised death, but Harry was impressed. Lockhart certainly knew how to smooth over his own shortcomings. "Enough demonstrating! I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me—"

They moved through the crowd, matching up partners. Draco sidled a bit closer to Harry as Professor Snape approached, and though the tall man's lips thinned in distaste, he obligingly left them together. Blaise, on the other hand, was unceremoniously paired with Seamus Finnigan, while Pansy stood uncertainly looking at Neville. Millicent Bulstrode was called over to pair up with Hermione, and she stood silent and aggressive even as Hermione gave her a shaky smile.

"Face your partners!" Lockhart called from the platform. "And bow!"

Harry, raised in Amestris, automatically bent at the waist, his hands loose at his side, and looked at Draco from behind the hair falling into his eyes. Draco bowed back more stiffly, though a mischievous smile was crawling up onto his face. Harry had a sense of foreboding.

"Wands at the ready!" Lockhart shouted, and Harry raised his right hand up in the stance his dad had taught him, which wasn't entirely unlike Snape's. "When I count to three, cast your charms to Disarm your opponent— _only_ to disarm them—we don't want any accidents—one…two…three—"

Harry swung his wand, but Draco had already started on "two", and his spell caught Harry completely off-guard. His feet began moving against his will in a kind of quickstep, and Draco laughed at him. This gave him an idea. Pointing his wand shakily at his friend, he took a deep breath and snapped, " _Rictumsempra!_ "

It hit Draco in the stomach, and he doubled over instantly with laughter. Harry couldn't help grinning even as his uncooperative feet started moving him towards Blaise, whose fight with Seamus seemed to be getting somewhat out of hand.

Lockhart screamed for them to stop over the sounds of havoc that filled the room, but thankfully Snape was more useful.

" _Finite Incantatem!_ " he shouted, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he finally stopped dancing. Draco, his usually perfect hair falling messily into his face, gave Harry an annoyed glare as he panted for air.

He wasn't the only one out of sorts. Pansy was on the floor, her hands over her head as if to protect herself, and Neville stood nervously a foot away, apologizing profusely. Seamus was wiping off his mouth, having thrown up on the floor by his feet, and Blaise was giving him a vindictive sort of look. Worst of all were Hermione and Millicent, though; Millicent had grabbed the Gryffindor girl in a headlock, and didn't seem to be letting go any time soon. Harry leapt forward to pull the girl off his friend, mentally thanking Ed for teaching him how to use his weight.

"Dear, dear," Lockhart was saying, skittering through the crowd like a scared beetle. He was trying to clean up in the aftermath of the duels, but didn't seem to be doing much good. "I think I'd better teach you how to _block_ unfriendly spells," he said, looking flustered and refusing to glance in Snape's direction. "Let's have a volunteer pair—Longbottom and Parkinson, how about you—"

Pansy gave the professor a terrified look, but Snape glided over to them and put a hand on her shoulder. "A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," he said malevolently. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. I hardly think Parkinson will survive another round. How about Malfoy and Potter?"

"Excellent idea!" Lockhart agreed before Harry could try to get out of it. He reluctantly moved into the middle of the hall with Draco, the crowd backing away to give them room.

"Now Harry," Lockhart said patiently. "When Draco points his wand at you, you do _this._ " He attempted to move his wand in a complicated wiggling pattern, and dropped it. Snape smirked as Lockhart quickly picked it up and tried to make an excuse about his wand being overexcited.

Harry ignored him and watched as Snape whispered something to Draco, which made Draco smirk too. Looking nervously down at his wand, he tried hard to remember what his dad had told him about protective spells. Lockhart cuffed him on the shoulder and backed away quickly.

"Three—two—one—go!" he shouted.

" _Protego!"_ Harry said immediately, but he needn't have bothered; Draco had moved at the same time, and bellowed " _Serpensortia!_ "

A long black snake exploded from the end of Draco's wand. Harry stared as it hit the ground and raised itself in position to strike at Harry. The crowd screamed and backed quickly away, leaving the floor around Harry completely clear.

"Don't move, Potter," Snape said lazily. "I'll get rid of it…."

"Allow me!" Lockhart shouted before Snape could move. He brandished his wand flamboyantly; there was a loud bang and the snake flew ten feet into the air. Enraged by the treatment, it hissed and moved toward the Hufflepuff boy Harry had nearly knocked over ages ago, fangs bared.

Next thing Harry knew, he was striding forward himself and shouting at the snake to leave him alone—and it listened. It sank immediately to the floor, docile as anything, and looked at Harry as if waiting for instruction. Harry felt relieved for a bare second, but then what he'd just done sunk in and he looked up with wide eyes at the scared-looking boy in front of him.

"What do you think you're playing at!" the Hufflepuff shouted, and turned and stormed out of the hall.

Harry himself stood frozen, watching as Snape stepped forward and promptly vanished the snake. He looked away instinctively when Snape gave him a shrewd look, and his eyes fell on a horrified Neville and Hermione.

Then there was a tugging on his robes, and Draco was dragging him urgently out of the hall. Blaise and Pansy followed on their heels, shuffling Harry away from the ominous muttering of his peers and all the way back down to the Slytherin common room.

"Why didn't you tell us you were a Parselmouth?" Draco asked eagerly, flushed and excited.

"I didn't know," Harry said faintly. Snakes weren't common in Amestris, and up until now he'd never actually seen a living one except in zoos. He certainly hadn't ever been close enough to talk to one. For a short moment, he wondered if his dad hadn't done that on purpose—but the thought was quickly shunted aside. Roy, he knew, would have loved Harry no matter what Dark talents he had. "But why's everyone here acting like I was trying to kill him? They can't have known what I was saying, but that snake obviously stopped attacking the second I spoke to it."

"Were you telling it to back off?" Pansy asked curiously. "It _sounded_ like you were egging it on."

"I wouldn't!" Harry snapped. "I don't even know that kid; why in the world would I sic a giant snake on him?"

Blaise, Pansy, and Draco all shared nervous looks. Harry crossed his arms and glared at them, waiting for the explanation.

"Don't you know anything about the Founders?" Blaise asked eventually. "Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth, he's famous for being the last known one. And with his Chamber being opened, Finch-Fletchley must've thought you—"

"That's ridiculous," Harry interrupted.

" _We_ know that," Draco said quickly. "But you can't prove you aren't Slytherin's descendant, can you?"

And with a sinking feeling of dread, Harry realized that his friends were right. They all knew he couldn't possibly be Slytherin's descendant, intent on releasing a monster on Muggleborn students—but would the rest of the school believe him?

xxxxx

He woke the next morning to discover that a blizzard had canceled the Gryffindor's last Herbology class of the term. The Slytherin second years had the morning free, and Harry knew that the Hufflepuffs had Herbology with the Gryffindors, so he wondered aloud if he should try to hunt down Finch-Fletchley to explain what had happened.

"Why bother?" Blaise asked lazily. "He'll believe what he wants to."

But Harry didn't want anybody thinking he was the heir of Slytherin, at least partly because he didn't want the rumor to find its way to his dad. So, with Draco at his heels, he left the common room and tried to figure out where the Hufflepuff might be.

At Draco's suggestion, they headed toward the library to see if he was catching up on some work. The hallways were dark with the storm raging outside, but the rest of the classes were still in session. Ignoring the sound of Professor McGonagall yelling at one of her students, the two of them climbed the floors to the library and pushed their way into the nearly-silent room. A group of Hufflepuffs were barely visible in the back of the library, huddled together but not doing any work. Curious, Harry and Draco approached them slowly, and stopped to listen in the Invisibility section.

A stout boy named Ernie was talking the most, solemnly trying to convince his friends that Harry was clearly the heir of Slytherin. He pointed out that the people who had been attacked had been annoying Harry—though Harry hadn't had any interactions with Filch yet that year—but that wasn't the most annoying part. It seemed he was convinced that Harry had somehow been born a Dark wizard, believing that an infant had defeated Voldemort with some sort of innate Dark powers.

Highly irritated, with Draco pushing relentlessly at his back, Harry cleared his throat and stepped out from behind the bookshelves. He almost smirked at the shocked fear he was greeted with, enjoying the way Ernie's face slowly drained of color.

"Hello," he said very calmly. "I was looking for Finch-Fletchley."

It probably hadn't been the smartest thing to announce his presence with, but the horror that leapt to every face looking at him was funny.

"What do you want with him?" Ernie asked, his voice unsteady.

"I wanted to tell him what really happened with that snake at the dueling club," Harry said. "Though it should be obvious, since it backed off when I spoke to it."

"We all saw what happened," Ernie said tersely. "You were speaking Parseltongue and chasing the snake toward Justin."

"He wasn't chasing it," Draco said impatiently. "The stupid thing dropped when Harry spoke to it!"

"As if we're going to believe you, Malfoy," Ernie snapped back, then turned hastily to Harry. "And in case you're getting any ideas, I might tell you that you can trace my family back through nine generations of witches and warlocks and my blood's as pure as anyone's, so—"

"I don't care what sort of blood you've got!" Harry said fiercely. "I grew up in Amestris! Nobody there gives a whit about Pureblood superiority; why would I want to attack Muggle-borns?"

"Look at what you're friends with!" Ernie said, pointing at Draco.

Harry had had enough. Though Draco protested that they should argue longer, he threw up his hands and dragged his friend out of the library. It wasn't that he didn't _want_ to argue his innocence, really, but he was worried that if he stayed to talk it would devolve into a physical fight. He really didn't want to get another detention—Lockhart would probably ask for him again.

He wasn't looking where he was going, but it was still something of a surprise when he ran headfirst into Hagrid in one of the dark hallways. He and Draco were unceremoniously knocked off their feet.

"Oh, hello, Hagrid," Draco said politely. Harry echoed him as he got to his feet, but didn't pay much attention to their conversation, despite Hagrid's obvious concern about Harry's bad mood. Making up an excuse about needing to get his books before Defense Against the Dark Arts, he stormed off again.

"Slow down, would you?" Draco asked irritably as Harry stamped down a particularly dark corridor. Harry promptly tripped over something lying across the floor, startling a short laugh out of him. His amusement was short-lived, however, as he turned to look at what he'd fallen over.

Finch-Fletchley was lying rigid on the floor, his face frozen in a look of Petrified shock, but he wasn't what made Harry's stomach twist up in knots. Floating next to him was Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, who was wearing an expression that matched the one of the living human beside him.

"What the—" Draco gasped, grabbing hold of Harry and hauling him to his feet. "We need to get out of here."

But before they could move, Peeves the Poltergeist came hurtling out of a room beside them.

"Why, it's potty wee Potter!" the poltergeist cackled. "And his pointy sidekick! What're they up to? Why're they lurking—" Peeves had stopped in midair, having spotted Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick halfway through a somersault. Before Harry could stop him, he flipped upwards and screamed, "ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATTAAAACK!"

All around them, classroom doors crashed open as people came into the corridor to see what the commotion about, and Harry and Draco were pressed up against the wall as they all milled about in panicked confusion. Finally Professor McGonagall arrived on the scene, ordering everyone back to their classes; Harry and Draco had just moved timidly towards their Professor when Ernie appeared, panting.

" _Caught in the act!_ " the Hufflepuff boy yelled, pointing dramatically at Harry. Draco snapped something back while McGonagall yelled at him, but Harry had finally run out of patience. Two long strides later found him in front of Ernie, and the punch he threw knocked him off his feet.

"Detention, Potter!" Professor McGonagall barked, even as she grabbed hold of Harry and pulled him away from the other boy. Ernie was holding his jaw as he stood up, looking at Harry in complete shock.

Since he was heading to the hospital wing anyway, McGonagall conjured a large fan out of thin air and instructed Ernie to waft Nick upstairs; clearly she had run out of patience with him as well. Flitwick and Sinistra carried Justin between the two of them, and Harry and Draco were left alone in the silent corridor with McGonagall.

"This way, boys," she said.

"Professor," Harry said as he hurried after her. "I swear I didn't—"

"This is out of my hands, Potter," she replied curtly. She swept them quickly around the corner, and came to a halt in front of a large stone gargoyle.

"Lemon drop!" she said to it, and it sprang to life and hopped out of their way. The wall behind it split in two, and Harry and Draco shared a nervous look as they stepped onto a spiral staircase that moved smoothly upward. At the top of the stairs, McGonagall herded them into a large circular room, and left them there to wait.

"Dumbledore will believe you, won't he?" Draco asked as Harry looked around the room curiously. He didn't recognize most of the instruments on the spindly tables against the wall, but he _did_ recognize the Sorting Hat and, on the opposite side of the room from it, he noticed a decidedly sickly-looking bird that was making a strange gagging noise.

Harry was just thinking that his day would be rounded out quite nicely by Dumbledore's pet bird dying in front of him, when the thing burst into flames.

Yelling in shock, he backed into the desk behind him, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Draco had jumped up as well, and the two of them stared in astonishment as the fire died out and left only a pile of ash on the floor.

"A phoenix?" Harry asked in a wondering voice, just as Dumbledore stepped somberly into the office.

"It's a shame you had to see Fawkes on a Burning Day," Dumbledore said quietly as he took his seat behind his desk. "He's really very handsome most of the time, wonderful red and gold plumage. Fascinating creatures, phoenixes. They can carry immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers, and they make highly _faithful_ pets."

Harry had known all of this, of course; his dad was fascinated by anything related to fire, and even Ed was intrigued by the bird's reincarnation cycle. But he didn't point this out to Dumbledore—as the headmaster fixed Harry with a penetrating stare, the office door flew open with a bang and Hagrid burst in wildly. A dead rooster hung limply from his hand.

"It wasn' them, Professor Dumbledore!" he said urgently. "I was talkin' ter them _seconds_ before that kid was found, they never had time, sir—" To Harry's amusement, Hagrid continued ranting on despite Dumbledore attempting to interrupt him several times.

" _Hagrid!_ " the old wizard finally said very loudly. "I do _not_ think Harry and Draco attacked those people."

"Oh," Hagrid said. "Right. I'll wait outside then, Headmaster."

Despite himself, Harry was pleased to hear that Dumbledore, at least, didn't suspect him. The headmaster calmly brushed rooster feathers off his desk, smiling kindly at Harry and Draco.

"You really don't think it was us, sir?" Draco asked in a hopeful voice.

"No, boys, I don't," Dumbledore said very softly. "But I still want to talk to you."

Harry and Draco shared a nervous look as Dumbledore considered them, the tips of his longer fingers together in front of his face. Harry looked back as calmly as he could, though his heartbeat was speeding up again in anxiety.

"I must ask you whether there is anything you'd like to tell me," he said. "Anything at all."

And, looking into his headmaster's eyes, Harry felt the most curious crawling sensation in the back of his head. It was sort of familiar, but he ignored it for a long moment as he thought vaguely of everything that had happened this year so far, of the mysterious house-elf's visits, of his uncomfortable encounters with Lockhart, of the rumors that he was the heir of Slytherin—and then, suddenly, he recognized what the sensation was. He hadn't experienced it in a long time, not since his dad had unhappily taught him—

When Harry jumped furiously to his feet, knocking his chair over, Dumbledore sat back so sharply it looked like he had been shoved. He looked simply astonished as Harry, trembling viciously, glared at him.

"How—how _dare_ you—" he managed to get out through gritted teeth. "You said you believed me, and then you—didn't even ask my _permission_ —"

"Harry, my boy—" Dumbledore said gently, getting to his feet himself with his hands raised placatingly in front of him, but Harry refused to listen.

" _Keep out of my head!_ " he snarled, and Draco gave a surprised gasp beside him. "You can't say you trust me in one breath, then go digging around in my private thoughts for something to be suspicious about!"

"I have a duty," Dumbledore said firmly, "to ensure my school is kept safe—"

"At the expense of your students," Harry said sarcastically. "Dad is going to be _furious_ when he hears about this, and you know what? I reckon you'll get what you deserve from him."

And, still seething, he yanked Draco from his seat to drag him along as he stormed through the corridors back toward the Slytherin dormitories, the safest place he could think of to find in this school.

* * *

A/N: Let me just say how fucking satisfying it is to have Harry getting mad at Dumbledore for reading his mind. I've long suspected—even before we learned about Legilimancy—that both Dumbledore and Snape had poked about in Harry's head while trying to get information out of him, and I've never stopped being irritated that neither of them ever got penalized for it. Also it's worth noting that I have _extremely_ complicated feels regarding Dumbledore. I feel like his heart is mostly in the right place, but he makes extremely bad and often immoral decisions while trying to do the right thing. Hopefully that comes across in my writing, and this doesn't just read as another Evil!Manipulative!Dumbledore cliché.


	6. Chapter 6: As the World Falls Down

A/N: I hope there aren't too many mistakes in this chapter. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't stomach reading most of this thing _again_ , so I decided to just let it be for now.

And this chapter title is courtesy of David Bowie, because of course it is.

 **Warnings: BAD THINGS HAPPEN HERE OKAY. Trigger warning: the chapter starts off with some non-con involving a minor, so if it will make you uncomfortable to read it (it was REALLY uncomfortable to write), skip the first section. The rest of the chapter deals with the aftermath.**

Disclaimer: Surprisingly enough, I own absolutely nothing in this story. I know. It depresses me, too.

Summary: Harry is getting ready to return for his second year at Hogwarts, but things start to go wrong before he even leaves for England. Between crazed house elves, ridiculous Gryffindors, and a startlingly incompetent (and creepy) teacher, he's starting to wish he'd just stayed home.

* * *

 _Chapter Six: As the World Falls Down_

In his fury over Dumbledore's actions, Harry completely forgot about the detention Professor McGonagall had promised him for hitting Ernie. He was unpleasantly reminded of it a few days before the winter break was set to begin, when he received an owl at breakfast informing him that he would have detention with Lockhart that very night. He scowled at the parchment in his hands, thinking wistfully about setting it on fire, but eventually tucked it away in a pocket.

He was in a bad mood the rest of the day, which wasn't helped at all by the rest of the school. It was clear that most of the students believed that Harry was the heir of Slytherin, feeling that he'd proved it when he had spoken to that snake at the Dueling Club. He was mollified slightly by the loyalty of his friends. Draco, Blaise, and Pansy almost never left his side, and, whenever possible, Hermione and Neville would join them and give nasty looks to all of their housemates shrinking back from Harry in fear. When they weren't at Harry's side, they were often found arguing vociferously with Ron and Seamus, both of whom seemed to believe Hermione was placing herself in unnecessary danger.

The only ones that made Harry feel really relaxed were Fred and George, though. Much to the displeasure of their older brother, Percy the Prefect, they made it a point to mock everyone else's fears. The two of them would march ahead of Harry in the corridors, calling for everyone to get out of the way of the "seriously evil wizard" who was walking the halls; if they were only passing him in the hallway, Fred would ask loudly when Harry was going to meet with his monster next, or George would try to ward him off with one of the amulets that had gone around the school when the whole thing had first begun.

"Oh, _don't_ ," Ginny Weasley wailed the one time she had witnessed one of these interactions. She seemed even more distressed about the events than anyone else in the castle combined, looking pale and sickly underneath her vivid mop of hair.

But Harry wasn't thinking of any of this when he finally found himself trudging up to Lockhart's office yet again. Shoulders hunched and scowling furiously at nothing, he knocked sharply on the door. Like last time, it opened immediately, and Lockhart ushered Harry into the room with a bright grin and a hand on his shoulder.

It smelt even more strongly of lavender this time, with a hint of something sickly-sweet that Harry couldn't quite place. The smell was making him feel somewhat dizzy, but his head had mostly cleared by the time he settled into a seat near Lockhart's desk with a tall pile of envelopes in front of him.

It didn't take long at all for Harry to zone out, and he didn't bother to fight it this time. It was actually rather pleasant to put himself on autopilot and scribble out names and addresses without ever seeing them. A peaceful feeling settled around him as he let his professor's soft voice wash over him, and he failed to be alarmed even when he heard Lockhart move around his large desk to kneel by the side of Harry's chair.

"That's good, Harry," Lockhart's gentle voice said, his new proximity making his words clear for a bare moment. It faded away as the man kept talking, and Harry continued writing as Lockhart leaned closer to him and ran a gentle hand through his hair. It really felt very nice, different from his dad or Ed, but every bit as full of love. The hand slowly moved lower, just barely grazing the skin of Harry's neck and shoulders. Then that sensation was fading into the haze that had settled around his mind as well.

Eventually he vaguely noticed his quill dropping to the table, though he hadn't realized he'd decided to stop writing. Then there was a faint new sensation on the side of his neck, warm and wet, and heavy breathing in his ear as the hands moved still lower, pressing more firmly into his body—and then the loud sound of a zipper grated on his ears, and he snapped out of the haze with a gasp.

"That's it, Harry," Lockhart murmured, not seeming to have noticed that Harry was no longer sitting in dazed compliance. "Just relax—you'll love this as much as I do."

Harry tried to lift his hands to shove him away, but they wouldn't cooperate. Desperate, he tried to shout for help, but even his throat seemed to have frozen up—all that came out was a high-pitched keening noise. Lockhart's head snapped up when he heard it, and he frowned at Harry with an expression of concern.

"Oh dear," Lockhart said, running his hand back up Harry's chest to gently grip his chin. "How _did_ you manage to snap out of it again? I know I made it strong enough—but no matter, no matter. Perhaps you might enjoy it more this way, hm?" And he ran a single finger across Harry's cheek.

"— _off_!" Harry tried to say, and Lockhart smiled right into his horrified eyes.

"Don't worry, sweetheart," he cooed soothingly. "You won't even remember how much fun we had in the morning."

Harry still couldn't scream as Lockhart moved in again, trailing his lips up Harry's neck as his hand slid smoothly into Harry's open pants—and there was a sudden sharp surge of power, moments before Lockhart was thrown back into his own desk, his back cracking sharply against the wood.

Harry gaped for a bare moment, shocked, before realizing that he could move again. His fingers were still clumsy as he zipped his pants back up and took out his wand, getting to his feet shakily and trying to back away. Lockhart, disheveled and displeased, was pulling his wand out as well, and Harry dodged to the side before he realized what he was doing. Whatever spell the professor had cast sizzled uselessly against the arm of the chair, and he aimed his wand at Harry again. But Harry hadn't been training with Ed for nothing.

" _Confringo!_ " he shouted hurriedly, and Lockhart was thrown back into the wall, his head bouncing sharply off it before he fell to the floor in a heap.

A moment later, Harry was out the door and running hard, not sure where he was going but determined to get as far away from that office as he could.

xxxxx

He was woken abruptly by soft voices that were just on the edge of his hearing. Unable to recognize the voices and fearing the worst, he tried to curl up into a smaller ball and shove himself deeper into the corner he was in, but there was nowhere for him to go. The room he was in was pitch black and freezing cold, and Harry was shaking so hard he could swear he heard his bones banging together, but he didn't move even as the voices clarified and he could hear his name being called.

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" a familiar voice finally snapped. " _Lumos!_ "

A soft light infused the room, and Harry squinted up into it to find Draco's pale face staring worriedly back at him. Fred and George were behind him, looking alarmed as they rushed forward together.

Harry jerked back so hard he saw stars when his head cracked off the wall behind him.

"Harry?" Fred said, his voice shaking in uncertainty. "What in the world are you doing here? You must be frozen solid!" He reached out a shaking hand, slowly enough that Harry didn't bang his head when he flinched again.

"D-don't touch m-me!" he said in a panicked rush. Fred and George gave each other dark looks.

"C'mon, let's get you to the hospital wing," George eventually said, his voice gentle, but Harry's eyes widened in horror and he tried to shrink back from his friends again.

" _No!_ " he said, but his parched throat wouldn't let him speak very loudly. "I c-can't go out th-th-there. He m-might—" But he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence, and he huddled miserably in on himself.

"Okay," Fred said slowly, and it was clear that he was at a complete loss for what to do. George didn't seem to have any better idea, though a grim look had settled on his face. "Okay," Fred repeated. "We can stay here, just—"

George muttered something soft that Harry didn't catch, and a moment later the stones at Harry's back started to warm up. That Harry could handle, though his shivering got even worse at the sudden juxtaposition of temperatures.

"…I'm going to go get Professor Snape," Draco muttered eventually. With one last worried look over his shoulder, he rushed from the room.

Fred, George, and Harry sat in silence as they waited for Draco and the professor to return. Harry kept tight hold of his knees, leaning his head against them and feeling too exhausted to move. Eventually his shaking settled down, though. A few minutes later, Draco was back, and Professor Snape was scowling as he moved to loom over Harry.

Harry's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly moved his gaze away from the professor's eyes. He started shaking again as Snape leaned over him, squeezing his eyes shut as his professor's hand moved ever closer and feeling embarrassed as a high, terrified noise escaped his throat. Snape wasn't going to do anything, he reminded himself firmly. Snape hated him too much to touch him.

He was so busy trying to convince himself that Snape was (relatively) safe that he hadn't noticed the man had knelt down until he glanced up and saw how close his face was. He was wearing a strange expression that was so out of the ordinary for the man that it took Harry a long moment to realize it was concern.

"Potter," Snape said curtly. Though his voice was low, he wasn't trying to sound gentle or soothing. Bizarrely, this made Harry feel better about the man's proximity, and he relaxed slightly. "What happened last night? Draco says you never returned from your detention."

Harry made a tight noise, strengthening the grip he had on his own knees. He opened his mouth to answer the question, but the words wouldn't come. Feeling frustrated tears pricking at his eyes, he buried his face in his knees.

"If you won't tell me, Potter, then get up and walk to the infirmary—"

"No!" Harry managed to get out. "H-he might—"

" _Who_ might what?"

"L-Lock—" but he couldn't finish the name, and he stared up at Snape miserably. "He m-might be there."

"Are you saying that Professor Lockhart is the reason you're here?" Harry nodded mutely, and Snape's already thin lips nearly disappeared in his face. There was a darkly unpleasant glint in his eyes that made Harry cringe. "Come with me, Potter," he said, getting to his feet.

Harry stared up at him in horror.

"I will not touch you," Snape assured him. "And your friends will be coming with us to ensure that. I'm going to take you to my rooms. Lockhart will not be able to enter there."

Harry stared up at the Potions professor for a long moment, trying to gauge his sincerity. He reminded himself again that Snape wouldn't want to touch him, not like—like _that_. And Fred and George and Draco would be there, and even if they couldn't stop him, they could slow him down long enough for Harry to run.

Finally, at least partially spurred on by Snape's impatient expression, he got slowly to his feet. He couldn't stop himself from shaking, even as he hugged himself tightly, and he stared unhappily down at the floor.

"Come," Snape said curtly. Harry waited a moment until the sweep of his long black robes disappeared from view, and then he followed. Fred and George walked behind him, feeling even more like bodyguards than Crabbe and Goyle had ever managed, and Draco hovered uncertainly by his side. He tried to give his friend a reassuring smile to let him know he'd be okay, but it felt strange and lopsided on his face, and Draco's worried look only got stronger.

The walk to Snape's rooms felt like it took forever. Not many people were out in the freezing corridors, but those who were darted out of Snape's way and watched them all parade by with wide eyes. They didn't run into any other teachers, for which Harry felt very grateful.

"In here," Snape spoke suddenly, making Harry jump. Harry looked nervously up at him for a moment, then skittered passed the arm that was holding a door open for him. "Have a seat."

He gratefully sank into the seat Snape nodded him to, looking around the room curiously as his friends filed into the room after him. Fred and George took up positions on either side of him, more serious than Harry had ever seen them, and Draco settled himself onto the nearby couch. The room wasn't anything like Harry had expected it would be. The cushion beneath him was large and comfortable, and the walls of the room were lined with bookshelves that were weighed down heavily with books and unpleasant knickknacks. Almost an entire wall was taken up by a huge fireplace his dad would have adored, and it was this that Snape was making his way towards. He took up a handful of red powder from a jar on the mantelpiece, and it glittered like Floo powder as he threw it into the fire. But the flames that flared up turned bright blue, and Snape knelt patiently in front of it without sticking his head inside.

"Mustang," he said. To Harry's astonishment, Ed revolved into view a moment later; his hair was still down and he wasn't yet fully dressed, but his eyes were sharp as he looked out at Snape in surprise.

"Isn't it a bit early to be testing the powder?" he asked with a frown, his familiar pre-coffee irritation doing more to soothe Harry than anything else had. "Not that I'm not pleased it works, but—"

"Is your husband still home?" Snape interrupted, his voice more patient than Harry had ever heard it. "I'm certain he'll wish to hear this as well."

Ed's frown deepened, his brows furrowing in concern, but he quickly disappeared. He was back a long minute later, with a rumpled Roy kneeling at his side.

"Is something wrong?" Roy asked, voice quiet.

"Your son appears to have had an…altercation last night," Snape said, his voice slow as if he was strongly considering every word he said. "Some of the students found him this morning, sitting alone in a disused room. I thought it—prudent to inform you before the headmaster."

"Did he say what happened?" Roy asked urgently, already starting to get to his feet.

"Not in so many words," Snape said drily. "But I have a very good idea of what it may be. It is...unpleasant."

"We'll be there as soon as we can," Roy said, spinning out of view.

Ed remained behind for another moment, his expression dark. "Nobody talks to him until we get there," he said, the chill in his voice promising retribution if his demand wasn't followed. Then he was gone as well, and Snape got back to his feet as the fire faded to a more normal shade.

Without saying a word to any of them, he glided over to one of his bookshelves, and picked up a potion bottle from the small collection on one of the lower shelves. He popped it open and gave it a cursory sniff, then brought it over to Harry. Harry pulled his legs up onto the chair as his professor knelt before him and held the bottle out to him.

"It's a Calming Draught," he explained. "Of my own design. It isn't as sedating as regular draughts, and will not cloud your thoughts. I'm hoping that it will enable you to speak more clearly when your father arrives."

Harry didn't say anything, staring at Snape over his knees. Snape stared impassively back, making no moves toward him and, more importantly, doing nothing else to cajole Harry into taking the medicine. Harry reached out to snatch it from him, then sat back and gave the bottle an uncertain look. He didn't drink it until Snape had moved almost all the way to the doorway.

"I must inform the headmaster of what is happening," he said. "The wards of this room ensure that nobody can enter without my permission, and I assure you that nobody has free reign to enter. Draco, if for some reason something happens, the Floo powder is on the other side of the mantel—you know where to go."

"Yes, sir," Draco said quietly.

"None of you leave these rooms," Snape said, and then he was gone.

xxxxx

Harry nearly jumped out of his seat when, a few minutes after Snape left the room, a cat appeared out of nowhere and leapt lightly up into his lap. He blinked down at it for a long moment, uncertain, until it finally bumped its head against his hand in a clear demand to be pet.

"I didn't know Professor Snape had a cat," Draco said with obvious confusion as Harry scratched behind its ears with a small smile.

"That's not Snape's cat," Fred said. "That's—"

But the cat opened its eyes and gave Fred what could only be termed a glare, and the older boy trailed off nervously. Harry looked between them with a frown, wondering if he was going to get in some sort of trouble, but the cat started purring loudly and bumping its head against his hand again. He figured that as long as the cat was happy its owner couldn't get too mad at him, and contently resumed petting it.

"You have funny little markings around your eyes," he said very softly. "They kind of look like glasses."

George snorted, and Harry managed another smile when the cat turned her head to glare at him as well.

"I like her," He said, giving George a cheeky grin. George rolled his eyes at him.

"You say that now," he said in a sour voice. "But just you wait until you find out who she is."

Between the cat purring in his lap and the effects of the potion Snape had given him, Harry finally managed to relax enough that Fred and George were able to prop themselves up on the arms of his chair. He still flinched if one of them touched him, but at least he was no longer jumping out of his skin every time somebody came near him.

Nothing much happened for a few hours. Fred and George talked quietly to each other, with Draco occasionally chiming in, and Harry let his friends' voices wash over him. Instead of thinking about the previous night, he started running through what he'd learned of alchemy over the summer, closing his eyes and leaning back as he ran symbols and their meanings through his mind.

When the door did finally open again, he only jumped a little, and managed to resist the urge to pull his knees back up to his chest. Snape swept into the room, followed closely by his dad and Ed. Snape gave the cat on Harry's lap an annoyed glare.

"I _am_ going to figure out how to keep you out," he snarled at it. The cat responded by purring even louder than it had been.

Harry managed a little smile, partly out of amusement at seeing Snape argue with a cat (and lose!), but mostly because he was happy to see his dad.

"Harry," Roy started, sounding worried as he kneeled in front of his chair, but Harry had already stopped listening. Professor Dumbledore had walked into the room after the two Amestrians, and behind him was Lockhart himself. Harry yanked his legs up onto the chair, dislodging the cat, and curled in on himself. The cat jumped up onto the arm of the chair in front of Fred, her back arched, and hissed at Lockhart. Roy didn't move at all, but Ed spun around and put a hand on his shoulder, his stance angry and defensive.

"Are you pleased, Headmaster?" Snape said in his darkest voice.

"Severus, please," Dumbledore said very softly. "You must understand that I have to be certain before I take any action. Gilderoy insists Harry fell asleep and must have had a nightmare—"

"Yeah, because _that's_ fucking believable," Ed snapped, but didn't say anything else after Roy put his hand on top of his.

"And I have yet to hear Harry's side myself."

"He was barely able to speak when I found him," Snape said shortly. "I hardly think he'll be more capable with his abuser in the room!"

Dumbledore's eyes caught Harry's. Harry glared stubbornly back at him, but his jaw was clenched so tightly he didn't think he would be able to talk. Instead he silently poked at his own mental shields, hoping they were as strong as he needed them to be.

"Perhaps," Dumbledore said very slowly, his hands already raising defensively, "if Harry would just let me see—"

" _No!_ " Harry managed to snap. "I'm not letting you in my head again!"

" _Again_?" Ed growled. "What the fuck does he mean _again_?"

Tearing his gaze from the Headmaster's, Harry looked down at his dad with wide eyes. "I was afraid he might see if I owled it to you," he said quietly. "When the ghost was Petrified, he tried to read my mind without my permission. Don't let him look again; I don't _want_ him in my head!"

Roy reached out a hand toward him, and even though Harry knew perfectly well that it was meant to be comforting, he instinctively flinched back and his head bounced harshly off the cushions behind him. Too many emotions crossed Roy's face for Harry to decipher any of them.

"Nobody is going to go into your head if you don't want them to, Harry," Roy said, his voice shaking slightly. Harry had never heard his dad's voice shake before. It seemed Ed hadn't either, because he half turned to look down at his husband with wide eyes for a second before his expression darkened.

"Which one of them am I killing first?" he asked, too calmly. Harry wasn't sure if he was serious or not.

"We're not killing anyone, Ed," Roy said with equal calm, before turning his attention back to Harry. "We do need to hear your side of the story, Harry. The authorities will want to have it."

Harry glanced back up towards Dumbledore, and caught sight of Lockhart standing by the door, a smirk on his face as if he still thought he was going to get away with what he did. Harry took a deep breath, looked at Ed's tense and trembling shoulders, then finally caught his dad's eyes again.

"You can look at it," he whispered nervously. "I don't mind if it's you or Ed."

"Are you okay to do it now?" Roy asked; Harry nodded quickly before he lost his nerve. "Okay. Maintain eye contact and... _Legilimens!"_

The scene from the night before immediately appeared; Harry saw himself entering Lockhart's office, filling out a hundred envelopes, and then the man beside him and touching him until the magic surged up to protect him—then the scene changed abruptly and he was in Dunbledore's office again with Draco beside him. It hovered briefly on Dumbledore entering the room, and when Harry didn't try to push his dad out of his head, it followed through to Harry dragging Draco out of the door.

Harry was trembling again when his dad finally pulled back, but he managed to resist the urge to bury his face in his knees again. This was at least partly because he was staring at his dad's furious expression.

"Roy?" Ed asked in a concerned voice. Roy turned to look up at him, gripping his arm tightly as he started to stand. Ed's eyebrows furrowed as they maintained eye contact for a long moment, and then Ed was jerking back with his face twisted in fury.

"Did you think I was fucking kidding when I warned you to fuck off?" he yelled, yanking himself out of Roy's grip and turning to Lockhart. The smirk disappeared off Lockhart's face as he started scrabbling for his wand, but he wasn't anywhere near quick enough. Ed leapt passed Dumbledore with his right arm pulled back, and there was a loud crack as his automail fist slammed into Lockhart's jaw. Ed caught him as he fell, clearly prepared to punch again, when Dumbledore reached forward and grabbed his arm. The old man's eyes widened in surprise.

Ed dropped Lockhart with a snort, then whirled and grabbed the front of Dumbledore's robes. The headmaster was taller than him, taller even than Roy, but Ed had no trouble shoving him up against the wall and holding him up on his toes.

"You!" he snarled, but words seemed to fail him entirely at this point, and he gave him a hard shake instead.

Roy had watched all of this with a completely blank face, his fingers rubbing together and creating a shower of sparks that fell harmlessly to the floor, but now he took a deep breath and stepped forward to put a calming hand on Ed's back.

"Let him go, Edward," he said in a cold voice. Ed turned his furious gaze up to him and they stared at each other for long moment. "Please, love. There are some things even I can't talk my way out of, and killing the headmaster is one of them."

Ed stepped back so abruptly that Dumbledore stumbled as his feet flattened against the ground. He gave Lockhart, who was holding his chin as he tried to get up, a swift kick that knocked him to the ground again, then he stepped back to Harry's chair. Turning his back to Harry, he crossed his arms and glowered at the headmaster as if daring him to say anything else.

Dumbledore had pulled out his wand, and was aiming it at Ed with a furious look. Neither Ed nor Roy moved, though Ed did give the headmaster an unpleasant grin.

"You don't want to do that," Roy said quietly. Dumbledore looked very much as if he _did_ want to, but he caught sight of Roy's face and hesitated. "You've already abused your power over my son, Headmaster. You don't want to attack my husband as well."

Dumbledore gave him a long, calculating look before slowly putting his wand away. There was a tense silence.

"I'm taking Harry home with me today," Roy finally said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Unfortunately, I have little choice but to allow Harry to return for the remainder of the school year. For your sake, I hope nothing else happens to him while he's here."

"I am truly sorry for what happened to Harry last night," Dumbledore said. "If I had known what Gilderoy had intended, I assure you I would never have even considered hiring him." He sighed and rubbed at his face tiredly. Clearly speaking to himself, he added, "Not even a whole year this time. Who's going to agree to teach _now_?"

Roy looked over at Ed with an eyebrow raised.

"You know…" Ed said slowly. "I _am_ a teacher."

* * *

A/N: Pretty much the only thing keeping Roy from making like Ed and attacking everyone is his desire to, y'know, keep his job and stay out of jail.

I have this _entire weekend_ off, so if we're really lucky we'll have another chapter before the end of the month. Don't hold your breath, though.


	7. Chapter 7: Gravity

A/N: I wrote like five attempts at starting this chapter, then suddenly puked out 900 words of kittens and decided "yes, this is it. this is the one." I give up. Let's just admit that this story is like ninety percent crackfic treated seriously and roll with it. (By the way, the kittens described in here are based on a couple of mine, because they're adorable and I love them. They do not actually have the same names Harry gave them.)

Chapter title courtesy of Sara Bareilles.

Warnings: kittens. so many kittens.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing at all. Except the cats, I guess.

* * *

 _Chapter Seven: Gravity_

"Can we get a cat?"

Roy and Ed both looked up from breakfast with raised eyebrows, surprised by Harry's abrupt request. Roy looked somewhat bemused, but Ed's face had a distinctly betrayed expression on it. Knowing how Ed felt about keeping cats (he'd argued with Al for _days_ when Al had thought about getting one—which ended up with Al getting about five instead, of course), Harry ducked his head shyly and pushed what was left of his breakfast around his plate.

"Why do you want a cat?" Roy asked quietly, his voice completely without judgment. Harry glanced up at him and Ed warily, worried that one of them was actually mad at him, but at least his dad's face was blank.

"The cat in Professor Snape's rooms was really relaxing," he said reluctantly. "And the therapist said I should look for activities I find relaxing and do them. I thought about asking to go over Al's but I can't go there _all_ the time, and I thought—I thought it might be nice."

To his surprise, Ed's expression had brightened into realization as he rambled, and was now fading into something like guilt. He leaned to the side to nudge Roy's shoulder with his own, and smiled when Roy turned to look askance at him.

"Al's never going to let me hear the end of this," Ed said quietly, but without the irritation that would normally accompany the statement.

"The sacrifices you make for this family," Roy murmured back with fond amusement. Ed snorted and poked him in the side; Roy grabbed his hand and kissed his knuckles. Harry hadn't thought the two of them could be any more revolting than they'd been after his dad had proposed, but they'd been taking their soppiness to entirely new levels all break. Harry wasn't as upset about it as he normally may have been. Lockhart's trial and Harry's therapy were taking their tolls on all of them, and Harry himself still shied away from most of their touches. Roy had always been physically affectionate with him, and Ed was physical with _everyone_ , so Harry supposed they were just being more touchy-feely with each other than usual since they couldn't touch him.

It was still kind of gross, though.

"I suppose you can tell your therapist that we'll get you a cat when I get home from work tonight," Roy said, his face turning serious. "I expect you to take care of it the same way you take care of Hedwig, and I don't want to hear any complaints. Especially when you get back to Hogwarts."

Which didn't at all explain how they walked out of the pet store that night carrying twice the amount of everything they'd originally thought to get.

"I still don't understand how this happened," Ed said, sounding slightly dazed as he looked down at the calico kitten sleeping in a basket on his lap. Harry quietly laughed at him from the back seat, but he could tell from Roy's expression earlier that his dad hadn't quite sorted it out either. "I mean, we did say _a_ cat, right? Like, one?"

"But we couldn't just leave her there once we chose Killer!" Harry protested, and the fluffy black kitten in his own lap meowed along with him as if in agreement. "Who else was going to protect her from those bullies?"

"Are you _really_ going to rename her Killer?" Roy asked in a long-suffering tone. "Cassandra is a perfectly lovely name."

"I have a reputation to uphold as a Slytherin," Harry said, trying to match Draco's usual smug voice. Judging by Roy and Ed's snorts, it worked better than he'd hoped. "She needs a way cooler name than that!"

"So what're you going to name this one?" Ed asked, picking up his kitten and holding it aloft in the air. Its patchy gray and pale orange fur glowed softly in the sunlight that poured in through Ed's window, and it stared sleepily down at him, then yawned in his face. "Runs-From-Shadows?"

Harry hadn't decided yet, but he grinned as the kitten wriggled until Ed set it in the basket again. Not that it was content to stay there. Apparently it wanted to investigate now that it was awake; it started by crawling up Ed's chest (to his very vocal complaints), then sitting up on his shoulder with its front paws on the top of Ed's head. Despite its precarious position, it reached out and started swatting at Ed's cowlick, and Roy and Harry both broke out in laughter.

"What the _fuck_ ," Ed snarled, pulling it off his shoulder and scowling at it again. There was a certain twitchiness to his lips that suggested he was trying not to laugh. "I should've known any cat Harry picked out would be as much of a pain in the ass as the two of you!"

"Maybe I'll call her Hunter," Harry said once he'd calmed down. The kitten had escaped Ed's grip again and had made it back up to his shoulder, where it was now purring as it butted its head against Ed's hair. Grudgingly, Ed lifted a hand and started petting it, but even he couldn't keep from smiling when it purred louder.

"Or Beast Tamer," Roy suggested with a cheesy grin. Ed glared at him, and probably would've given him a hard poke if it weren't for the kitten on his shoulder. "You can call her Beast for short."

"Don't even _think_ about it," Ed snapped.

"Mewwww!" the cat in Harry's lap said.

"Yeah, I know," Harry sighed, scratching the cat's head. "I think he enjoys ruining everyone else's fun."

xxxxx

The kittens were probably the only thing that got him through the rest of break. Both of them liked to sleep on Harry's bed at night, Hunter draped over his feet while Killer curled up at his back. Most of his nights were broken up by nightmares, not all of them based on the events of that year, but usually their soft purring was enough to get him relaxed enough to go back to sleep.

Their habit of crawling all over him every time he sat still even helped him get used to being touched again. By the time the trial was over and Lockhart was safely carted off to Azkaban (stories of which were enough to give Harry nightmares all on their own), he was no longer flinching whenever Ed and Roy reached out to him. He still didn't seek out contact on his own, but being able to ruffle Harry's hair and hug him seemed to defuse a tension Harry hadn't even noticed in the house.

Then it was finally time to return to Hogwarts. Harry was the only one pleased, having missed his friends a great deal, and wishing he'd remembered to thank Fred, George, and Draco for their help before he'd left. Ed went silent as the three of them got onto the Hogwarts Express, heading toward the back of the train where a compartment had been reserved for him and Harry, and Roy hovered in the doorway as they got settled in.

Harry looked up at his carefully blank face for a long moment, then finally stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him. Roy started in surprise—this was the first time Harry had initiated a touch in weeks—but then he was gently hugging back. Harry took a deep breath, closing his eyes as the smell of his dad's cologne and the familiar embrace made his shoulders relax in comfort.

"Thank you, Harry," Roy said softly, his fingers ghosting through Harry's hair so lightly he almost didn't feel it. Pulling back a little, he looked up at his dad's face to find the man smiling happily down at him. Normally something this sappy would have prompted _some_ sort of comment from Ed, but when Harry looked over at the other man he noticed that Ed was wearing a softly pleased expression of his own. Harry could feel himself blush, so he squirmed out of his dad's loose grip to hop onto one of the benches instead.

Ed stepped forward into the spot Harry had vacated, wrapping his own arms around Roy's neck and leaning into him. Roy pulled him close, and Harry wrinkled his nose in disgust as they spoke softly to each other for several long minutes, but he didn't interrupt. He couldn't remember the last time his dad and Ed had been separated for more than a few days, and he didn't think it would be fair to begrudge them a long goodbye.

But even after they had separated and Ed had settled himself into a seat by the window, Roy seemed hesitant to leave. He stared at the two of them with a soft, sad expression on his face, until Ed gave him a weak grin.

"What, you coming with us now?" he asked, his voice light. Harry didn't think his dad was fooled for a second, but Roy still smiled back at him.

"Okay, okay, I'm going," he said with a dramatic sigh. "I should've known you'd be in a hurry to return to your other boyfriend."

Ed snarled at him, unimpressed with the joke, but Harry hid a laugh behind his hand and Roy's smile turned authentic in his amusement.

"Be safe," Roy said softly. "I love you."

Ed huffed noisily, pointedly turning to the window, and Harry and his dad shared a smile. "I love you too," Harry said quietly.

A comfortable silence settled into the compartment once Roy was gone. Ed had pulled out a book, slumping into his corner with an expression of deep concentration that meant he probably wasn't going to move again for hours. Harry sighed and opened up his Charms book, deciding he'd might as well get some reading done early. Both of them were focused on their studies, writing notes in the margins as they went, so Harry nearly jumped out of his seat when they heard the loud noises out in the corridor.

"What was that?" he asked quietly, setting his book to the side. Ed had already gotten up with a frown, and he gestured for Harry to stay in his seat as he pulled out his wand before sliding the compartment door open with a loud bang. He lowered his wand a second later, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. Harry peered around him and saw two upper year Ravenclaw boys, one of which was holding something high in the air. A vaguely familiar blond girl was sitting on the floor by Ed's feet, not even frowning as she looked up at them.

"You should give the kid her book back," Ed said flatly.

The two boys looked at Ed in faint disbelief. "Who're _you_?" one of them asked rudely, only to be nudged in the side by his friend.

"Don't you recognize him?" the other one asked in a tone that clearly wasn't meant to be as loud as it was. "He's the guy everyone was saying is Snape's husband!"

"Husband?" Ed asked distastefully, looking back at Harry. Harry ducked his head and blushed.

"Um," he said. "I was trying to correct everyone after the rumor you were his boyfriend started spreading and I guess it got—worse."

"Maybe now Roy'll stop thinking it's funny," Ed muttered, then turned back to the kids in the corridor. "I'm not married to Severus."

"That's very sad," the girl on the floor said in a dreamy voice, and Harry finally recognized her as Loony Lovegood. "I think Professor Snape would be nicer if he had someone to make him happy."

"That man wouldn't know happiness if it danced on the end of his nose in a tutu," Ed snorted. "Now, you gonna give her book back or what?"

"Why should we listen to _you_?" the first Ravenclaw asked snidely. For a guy in the House of intelligence, he was awfully obtuse.

"Because I'm your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," Ed said with one of his evil grins. Both of the boys leaned away from him abruptly, sharing a nervous look. "And I don't think you want to lose points for being idiots before we even get to the school, do you?"

"N-no, sir!" the second boy said in a high voice, abruptly dropping the book he was holding to the ground. It narrowly missed Lovegood's leg, and Ed's eyes narrowed in displeasure. Both of the boys finally started backing away, but Harry noted with amusement that neither of them turned their backs to Ed.

Once they were out of view, Ed turned to Lovegood and offered his left hand to help her up. She took it gently, but as she got to her feet she said, "It won't help, you know."

"Yeah, but it makes me feel better," Ed said, scooping the book up and handing it back to her. "Let's get you back to your compartment."

The dreamy look on the first year's face disappeared almost instantly, and she looked down at the book in her hands with a frown. "I don't have one," she said eventually. "Nobody wants to sit with me."

"Can't she sit here, Ed?" Harry asked earnestly. "I don't mind."

Lovegood seemed to take notice of him for the first time, and her already-bulging eyes widened further in surprise. "You're Harry Potter," she said. Harry flushed.

"Yeah," he said unhappily. "I guess I am."

"You should be certain of who you are, or you may get confused by a jabberwocky," she responded with a dreamy smile, stepping hesitantly into the compartment. When neither Harry nor Ed objected, she held out her hand. "I'm Luna Lovegood."

Harry was surprised by her firm handshake, but he tried not to let it show as she took a seat in the bench across from him. She slid a magazine out of the book Ed had given back to her, turning it upside down as she opened it up. Harry and Ed shared a bemused look, but didn't comment on it, and the compartment was silent again as they all read.

"Wait," Ed said after a few minutes, looking at Luna with a suspicious scowl. "Wasn't the jabberwocky one of the creatures Carroll made up for Alice in Wonderland?"

Luna just gave him her dreamy smile, not saying anything, but Harry could swear he saw a glint of mischief in her eyes.

xxxxx

Within a day, Ed became the only topic of gossip the Hogwarts' students seemed to be willing to talk about. Wild rumors abounded as they tried to figure out why Ed seemed to hate Dumbledore so much, including one that said the only reason Snape and Ed weren't married was that the Headmaster disapproved. There were also stories circling about why Harry and Ed seemed so close when everyone _knew_ Snape hated Harry. When he tried to explain that Ed was married to his dad, it only seemed to make things even worse; the next morning, people started saying that _Snape_ was Harry's dad instead. Harry just buried his face in his hands with a groan when he heard that one, and a few minutes later he could hear Ed's startled bark of laughter from the front of the Hall. At least somebody was amused by all of the nonsense floating around.

Thankfully, by the end of the first week, the talk about Ed's personal life mostly disappeared. They talked about his classes instead. Some people were grumbling about how difficult of a teacher Ed was—which Harry already knew from experience—but for the most part they seemed to be almost in awe of him. Harry's favorite rumor was that Ed had decided to test the seventh years by making the entire class duel him at once and beating them all without even breaking a sweat. Several of the upper level students could be found in his office almost every night after dinner, asking him complicated questions that made Harry's head spin the one time he'd made the mistake of dropping by.

Harry didn't get to find out for himself what Ed's classes were like until Friday morning, when the Slytherin first years finally had Defense. The rest of the class, even the ones that had met Ed before, were buzzing with excitement as they trooped up to the new classroom on the fourth floor. Harry rolled his eyes at them impatiently; he spent every other morning on the grounds with Ed, practicing his martial arts and being drilled on alchemy for an hour before breakfast, and he wasn't looking forward to the expectations Ed would have for him.

Everyone fell silent when the bell rang and the door to Ed's room swung silently open. Millicent and Daphne glared at each other nervously, neither one making a move to go inside, so Harry sighed and pushed his way past them. He took a seat in the first row, Draco falling in beside him, and smirked as his housemates took their seats with reluctance. Ed's desk was as much of a mess as Harry had expected it to be, and the man himself was up at the board muttering to himself as he ran through some calculations faster than Harry could follow. He didn't seem to notice the room filling up behind him, even when Crabbe accidentally knocked his inkwell off the corner of his desk and it rolled noisily across the floor up to Ed's. Nobody got up to retrieve it.

"Professor!" Daphne eventually called out timidly, and Harry snorted.

"You're not going to get his attention like that," he said. He dug through his bag for a spare bit of parchment, then balled it up and took careful aim. Millicent protested the action loudly, but it was too late; the ball of paper sailed neatly through the air, bounced off the back of Ed's head, and landed neatly in the middle of his desk.

"What the fuck?" Ed said flatly, rubbing at the back of his head as he turned around. He looked surprised to see the class staring back at him, and turned to the clock with a suspicious look. "Damn, and I was starting to get somewhere too."

The class watched in bemusement as he rummaged around in the paperwork scattered across his desk, absentmindedly tossing Harry's parchment ball into the trash along with a batch of his own balled up work, and eventually came up with a stack of papers. He flipped through them as he walked around to the front of the desk, and Harry grinned as he finally got a good look at him and recognized the signs of Ed on a research binge: the front of his vest was covered in chalkdust, his gloves were covered in ink, and his hair was starting to come out of its ponytail. Finally, Ed dropped half of the paperwork he was holding back to his desk, bent down to retrieve the inkwell he'd narrowly missed kicking, and turned to the class with a frown.

"Whose ink is this?" he asked. Silence greeted him.

"It's Crabbe's," Harry finally said. "It fell off his desk."

"Come get it," Ed said, clearly speaking to him, so Harry slid from his seat and walked up to him. Ed handed him the stack of papers as well. "And hand these out."

"Is this a test?" Harry asked when he got a good look at the papers. Ed rolled his eyes as the class groaned, spinning Harry around and giving him a light shove.

"Yes, it's a test," he said, now speaking to the entire class. "I need to find out how much that idiot fu—uh, messed up what you were supposed to learn this year, so." Then, not really to the class but still audible, "Not that this country has any discernible fucking standards."

"You should stop cursing," Harry said in his most innocent voice as he dutifully handed out the papers Ed had given him. "I'm pretty sure the parents will complain."

"Did I ask for commentary from the peanut gallery?" Ed asked. He clearly didn't expect an answer, because he started talking to the class again immediately. "Once Harry gets back to his seat, if it ever happens at the rate he's moving," Harry grimaced and started handing out the papers faster. "you have a half hour to finish the test. If you don't know the right answer, give it your best guess. Unless you don't even have a guess, I suppose, then just don't answer it at all. And don't be worried if you can't answer everything; nobody in any of the classes got all of the answers right, so I'm not expecting perfection from any of you. …Except Harry."

"Is this punishment for throwing that parchment at you?" Harry asked. "Because that was all Draco's idea."

"It was not!" Draco yelped from his seat, and Harry turned around just in time to catch the tail end of his betrayed glare.

"Stop trying to cause trouble and sit down," Ed said, rolling his eyes and turning back to the chalkboard. "And don't throw more parchment at me when the half hour is up."

While the class tried to focus on their test, Ed returned to the chalkboard and started running more calculations. Fifteen minutes in, he stepped back and seemed to be looking them over, restlessly tapping his fingers against his automail arm in between corrections. The class looked up at the dull metallic sound with interest until Ed turned around and glared at them pointedly.

When the half hour was nearly up, Ed pulled his notebook out of the inner pocket of his jacket, opening it up and muttering something as he pointed his wand at the chalkboard. The markings on the board peeled off like paint, shrinking as they flew down to the notebook. Once they were all gone, Ed tapped the book twice more with his wand and put it away, then turned to the class again and collected the test papers. He flipped through them with a scowl, then snapped a rubber band around them and dropped them to his desk. Harry wondered if he had any sort of order on it at all.

"Okay, it's not looking as bad as it might've been," he said, and the class breathed out a collective sigh of relief. "Though I'll tell you now, he's given you guys some _weird_ ideas about ghouls, so you might want to try to purge all of that book from your head.

"Oh, and speaking of those books? Don't bother to bring them to class. You'll be taking a lot of notes, but it's better than trying to dig up anything useful in those pieces of crap…."

xxxxx

The gossip was still going strong the next week, when Harry managed to use one of his morning breaks to spend some time with Ed that didn't end with him being thrown into the dirt. Ed was still amused by it all, laughing at some of the weirder stories Harry shared with him, but he seemed distracted enough that Harry started to worry. He looked around Ed's office for a hint of what could be bothering him, and frowned at the overflowing wastebasket and messy paperwork that Harry was slowly realizing was actually sort of organized. He picked up a particularly scribbled-over sheet and squinted at it. It appeared to be a travelogue, which was weird enough that Harry figured it must be some sort of code.

"What're you working on?" he asked Ed curiously.

Ed plucked the paper out of Harry's hand and squinted at it himself. "Oh, this," he said vaguely. "Just something that's been irritating me. It's been harder to get to the bottom of than I thought it would be."

"Have you been sleeping?" Harry demanded with a scowl.

"'Course I have," Ed said irritably, tossing the paper back into the pile Harry had taken it from. "I swear you sound more like Roy every day. It would be cute if it wasn't so fucking annoying."

"I think you should sleep more," Harry said. "You're really grumpy today."

Ed narrowed his eyes at him. "Don't you have schoolwork to be doing or something?" he asked. "I know _I've_ got work to catch up on."

Harry sighed, but started gathering his stuff to leave anyway. It was no wonder he put up with Draco's attitude so well, really. Ed was just as frustrating when he was tired as Draco was on any given day.

Not wanting to go back to his boring History of Magic homework, Harry started wandering the hallways as he tried to sort out what else he could do. He didn't really want to go back to the common room and listen to his friends bickering, so he turned toward the Gryffindor tower instead with vague thoughts of asking Neville for a chess game. But he was distracted from this goal when he heard the unmistakable sounds of Filch screeching, and he slinked up the steps to listen in as the man ranted about some mess somebody had made.

He waited until Filch had left, then poked his head around the corner to see what was going on. He was once again at the spot where Mrs. Norris had been Petrified. Not that it should've been much of a surprise, really; Filch had been patrolling that hallway since the attack, repeatedly attempting to scrub the chilling words off the wall to little affect. He must have only just walked into the area recently, though, because a large puddle of water was stretched over half of the corridor. And now that the corridor was silent, he could also hear an echoing wail from the girls' bathroom.

Concerned, Harry splashed through the puddle and approached the door. He hesitated briefly, but the "Out of Order" sign assured him that nobody would be in there to use the toilet, and he pushed his way through. The crying was coming from one particular stall, but it wasn't until he had walked over to it that he realized it must be a ghost—surely no living person would actually manage to be _under_ the toilet!

"Who's that?" the ghost asked as Harry approached, its voice distinctly feminine. "Come to throw something else at me?"

Harry's brow furrowed in confusion. "Why would I throw something at you?"

"Don't ask me!" the ghost shouted, and Harry jumped back to avoid being soaked as she emerged from the toilet along with a wave of water. "Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me…."

"I don't think it's very funny," Harry frowned. "Even if it won't hurt you, it's pretty cruel to throw things at you."

The ghost hovered in the air, glaring at Harry suspiciously as if she thought he was just trying to trick her into relaxing before he threw a book himself. Harry blinked back at her guilelessly, taking in her appearance. She must've died pretty young; he could still see the echo of acne scattered across her round face.

"Who threw it at you anyway?" Harry asked eventually. "My, um, I guess he's sort of my dad—he's a teacher here, I bet I could get him to yell at them for you."

"I don't know," the ghost said sulkily. "I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell right through the top of my head." She looked at Harry for another long moment, then seemed to settle herself on the toilet seat as if she was sitting on it. "It's over there, it got washed out…."

Harry looked under the sink that she pointed to, and picked up the shabby little book that was soaking in the water that coated the floor. He shook off the worst of the moisture, then turned it over in his hands. The date on the front told him it was fifty years old, and there was the name of a store in London printed on the back, but otherwise it held no indication of what was in it or even who had owned it. Harry couldn't imagine why anybody would want to throw it away, so he pocketed it to look at it once it was dry again.

The ghost had floated over to him as he looked at the book, and hovered above the sink. Harry looked up at her and smiled reassuringly, though she still squinted at him suspiciously.

"Maybe I can figure out whose book it is," he said. "And then I can throw it at them and see how _they_ like it."

As he suspected, the ghost smiled at him a little maliciously. "Oooh, I don't think they'll like that at _all_ ," she said with clear pleasure. "You'll come back and tell me about it, won't you? My name's Myrtle."

"Sure," Harry said agreeably, though he'd avoid it for as long as possible. "It was nice meeting you, but I should probably go get ready for class; I'll need to dry off before Filch catches me tracking water through the corridors."

That night, he finally opened the diary after casting a wary _Reparo_ on it, but there wasn't much to see. The first page told him that it had belonged to a T. M. Riddle, but it seemed that Riddle had lost interest in it after writing their name. Not a single one of the days had anything written on it, even after Harry tried everything he could think of to get words to reveal themselves.

When he finally put it down for the night, he had every intention of leaving it in his dormitory and forgetting about it. But the next day he found himself tucking it into one of the pockets of his robes, and he flipped through it throughout the day even though he knew nothing was in it.

* * *

A/N: I have MOAR FLUFF planned (in fact, it was supposed to happen in this chapter), but this chapter is already long enough and I'm exhausted and want to post it. Soooo I guess this book is going to be a chapter or so longer than I originally expected?

Also, a note on Luna: I'm not going to change her character so that she doesn't believe in the, uh, Snorkacks or whatever she rambled about in later books. But I kind of feel like since nobody believes in any of the things she does, sometimes she just makes up new ones just to see if anybody notices.


	8. Chapter 8: Love Song Requiem

A/N: I make no apologies for having written nearly five thousand words of schmoop. NO APOLOGIES AT ALL. Consider this to be an interlude of sorts. A Roy-terlude, if you will. Roy's sap is contagious, I swear.

Okay but for real, I have very valid reasons for doing this. Some of the fluff was always meant to be here, and in light of recent events (read: my life sucks), I decided to expand it. Just bear with me.

Chapter title courtesy of Trading Yesterday.

Warnings: I think I gave _myself_ cavities. Ow.

Disclaimer: If I owned FMA, I'd still own a car. Because I'd have bought a new one by now. Please don't ask questions.

* * *

 _Chapter Eight: Love Song Requiem_

In comparison to the first half of the school year, January dragged by so slowly Harry began to wonder if it was ever going to end. It was cold and cloudy, but it never seemed to snow, and even though nothing bad happened there was a heaviness suffusing the hallways that nobody could shake. Harry suspected a lot of this was due to the weather, but there were also constant reminders of everything that had gone wrong this year. Ed was actually the biggest one; though most of the students seemed to like him, it was hard to forget that he was the replacement teacher.

The good news was that most people seemed to have stopped believing Harry was the Heir of Slytherin. It wasn't that they didn't gossip about his ability to speak Parseltongue or the Petrified people laying in the hospital wing, but the argument was that if Harry _had_ been the Heir, Lockhart would have been attacked before he could have been arrested. (As was the norm for most secrets on the Hogwarts campus, it seemed like everyone knew Lockhart had done something to Harry during detention. Nobody knew the details, but it was likely some people suspected what had happened—Harry still tended to shy away from touch, especially when he wasn't expecting it.)

Harry was enjoying a rare bit of sunshine with his friends out on the grounds one Friday morning when the monotony was finally broken. He tended to hang around aimlessly with the Slytherins during their morning break, avidly avoiding doing any work, and this morning was little different (Luna had drifted over about halfway through, and was now looking through a magazine with Blaise), except that Pansy was in a panic as she attempted to finish her Defense Against the Dark Arts essay before class. In between frantic bouts of writing, she was trying to get Harry to give her the answers. Harry normally wouldn't give her answers for any of their homework, but he was especially strict about Ed's class, because Ed would know. Harry wasn't entirely certain _how_ he would know, but he was like Roy that way: he knew _everything_. An argument was just about to break out when Draco frantically gestured for them both to stop, and a second later Professor Snape's voice interrupted them.

"I sincerely hope I misheard this conversation, Miss Parkinson," he said in a voice he usually reserved for Gryffindors. "I would hate to take points from my own house."

Pansy's face paled dramatically as they both turned around, but if she had anything to say in her own defense it was interrupted by Harry gasping, "Dad!"

"Hello, Harry," Roy said with annoying calm, his cheeky grin not nearly as bright as Harry would have expected it to be. It made Harry hesitate for the barest moment before he scrambled to his feet and leapt forward, wrapping his arms around his dad's waist. Roy hugged him back a little too tightly, and held on for so long that Harry finally had to squirm backwards far enough to look up at his face. Roy's smile had softened, and he pushed Harry's bangs out of his eyes.

"Your hair's getting a bit long," he said, mostly to himself. "I knew we should have gotten it cut in August."

"...I was thinking about growing it out," Harry said hesitantly. "I wanted to braid it like Ed used to do."

Roy frowned a little, and Harry's heart dropped. It wasn't really so much that he cared about how long his hair was (though he kind of thought having long hair would be cool); he just really wasn't looking forward to having some stranger touching his head and bringing scissors near it. But if it was going to upset his dad—

"Ed is going to be so smug when he hears this," Roy said, which surprised a laugh out of Harry.

"We can let him figure it out on his own," Harry suggested. "He won't be less smug, but it'll be funny."

"Well, it's your hair," Roy finally agreed with a sigh.

"I hate to interrupt this touching reunion," Snape said dryly, "but class is going to begin soon. I suggest you get moving if you don't wish to be late."

"Thank you, Severus," Roy said, and Harry couldn't help to notice that there was no real warmth in his voice. Clearly he didn't get along with Snape nearly as well as Ed did. "I appreciate your assistance."

"It was no problem, General," Snape replied, then turned his dark gaze to Luna. "Miss Lovegood, perhaps you'd like to be on time for Potions today?"

"I'd like to be on time every day, Professor," Luna replied, hopping to her feet. "But the jabberwockies have been especially vicious this year."

Snape sighed irritably, shaking his head as he stalked off with Luna drifting after him like a particularly absent-minded cloud, but seemed to think it wouldn't do any good to yell at her because he didn't bother saying anything else.

"We have Ed's class next," Harry told his dad as the unlikely pair disappeared from view. "You should come with us; I bet he'd be really happy to see you. I don't think he's been sleeping much lately."

"Is that so?" Roy asked with a scowl. Harry felt kind of bad about telling his dad his suspicions about Ed's recent habits, but if it put Ed in a better mood it'd be worth it. "Well, why don't you lead the way, then? And you can tell me about your new friend on the way."

Harry did as requested, explaining how Ed had saved Luna from the bullies on the train, and how Luna had quickly become one of Ed's favorite students because she was just so _weird_. This brought a fond smile to Roy's face, especially when Harry told him that it seemed like people were scared to bully Luna anymore because they were all terrified of their new professor. (The last person who had stolen something of Luna's still wouldn't talk about the detention he'd had with Ed.) Draco and Blaise were quick to point out that Ed was terrifying when he was angry—and he was irritable enough to always be angry (Roy seemed to think that was funny), which prompted Pansy to chime in with a completely different complaint.

"He's the only thing the girls want to talk about anymore!" she said shrilly, and continued in a mocking voice. "Oh, Professor Elric is so _smart_ and so _dreamy_ and his hair is so _lovely_."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Harry said.

"Please don't vomit on my boots," his dad said, though he didn't remove his arm from around Harry's shoulders. "I just had them shined."

"And then they keep trying to figure out how Professor Snape got him to marry him and I keep trying to explain—"

"Wait," Roy interrupted, "they think _what_ now?"

Pansy fell silent and gave Harry a beseeching look, clearly asking him to fix her mistake, but Harry just grimaced back at her. He didn't know what to say either.

"I keep trying to correct them," Pansy finally explained in a timid voice, "but every time I say he's married to Harry's dad, they start asking me why Professor Snape would hate Harry so much if he's his dad and—"

To Harry's surprise, Roy seemed to find all of this gossip hilarious, leaning on Harry a little as he laughed more than Harry thought could possibly be warranted. Harry shared baffled looks with his friends when he finally stopped, and then they were drawing up to the closed door of Ed's classroom. Millicent and Daphne were already there, and they stopped talking when they caught sight of Roy, who gave them one of his charming grins. Predictably, they both blushed.

" _Dad_ ," Harry moaned, embarrassed, but didn't get to complain any further when the bell announcing the start of class rang.

Daphne was the first to look inside as the door swung open, and she made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. "Ugh, not _again_ ," she muttered, walking inside with her shoulders hunched. Roy gave Harry a curious look.

"Ed uses the classroom to do research on the board," Harry explained as they filed inside. "And he usually doesn't notice we're here unless I throw something at him."

Sure enough, Ed still hadn't stopped scribbling on the board even after Tracey Davis and Theodore Nott had come running into the room with panicked looks on their faces, and Harry sighed. If this kept up, he was going to run out of parchment to keep notes on.

"Oh, I don't think that will be necessary today," Roy said in an amused voice when Harry moved to ball up some paper. Harry glanced at the way his dad was looking at Ed and groaned miserably, dropping his face into his arms. Roy ruffled his hair before he moved towards the front of the classroom.

"What's your problem?" Blaise asked with clear confusion, and Harry gave him an unhappy glare without answering the question. It's not like he needed to.

When Roy reached his husband, he unceremoniously wrapped his arms around the shorter man's waist and audibly purred, "Good morning, beautiful."

" _Fuck!_ " Ed snarled, visibly jumping and making a streak across the board that obliterated some of his work. He cursed fluently, not all of it in English, and turned in Roy's grip to scowl up at his husband harshly enough that most of the class flinched back in sympathy.

Roy, of course, grinned right back into his face.

"If it's any consolation," he said, "your calculations really started to go off at that point."

" _You_ —" Ed snarled, and flailed a bit as he seemed to flounder for words. "Bastard!"

"I've long suspected that's actually an endearment coming from you," Roy said, tucking some of Ed's loose hair behind his ear as he blushed. "It's almost sweet."

"You're so fucking lucky I love you," Ed growled, poking him hard in the chest with the automail hand.

"You think I don't know that?" Roy asked in a soft voice, cupping Ed's jaw and leaning in closer. Whatever else he had to say was lost as his voice lowered further, but it made Ed's expression soften. The rest of the class breathed a collective sigh of relief when Ed was no longer visibly angry, but Harry put his hands over his face again.

"Do you think they forgot we were here?" Daphne asked a minute later, not that she sounded like she minded.

"Dad doesn't care," Harry muttered. "And Ed probably never noticed."

Ed eventually seemed to realize that they had an audience because Harry distinctly heard his dad laugh as he threw himself (or possibly was thrown into) Ed's chair. Harry looked up warily to see Ed addressing the class with a red face and a scowl that wasn't as irritated as it was trying to be, while Roy watched him with a sappy little smile.

It was weird sitting through a class with his dad at the front of the room, alternately feigning sleep and flipping through the paperwork on Ed's desk with a curious expression (at least until Ed suggested he help grade some of the essays if he was so bored, at which point he sat up with a suddenly _very_ attentive expression that made half the class laugh), but thankfully Ed's classes always seemed much shorter than they actually were. It felt like no time at all before the bell rang to signal the end of class, and Ed yelled what their homework was over the sound of everyone getting up (nobody would be stupid enough to pretend they hadn't heard it). Harry hovered at the back of the class as everyone left, but Roy just gave him a little smile and waved him on. Figuring that his dad and Ed wanted a couple minutes to themselves before they'd have the entire school staring at them while they ate, Harry darted out of the classroom and quickly caught up with his friends.

xxxxx

His dad and Ed were the talk of the school all weekend. Neither of them showed up for breakfast Saturday morning, and when they eventually walked into the Great Hall late for lunch, they were tangled together and not paying an ounce of attention to anyone else. They couldn't be more disgustingly in love if they tried. For a while, people seemed to believe that Ed had dumped Snape for Roy (not that anybody blamed him), but that rumor died quickly when it became obvious that Snape and Roy harbored no ill will toward each other. In fact, Sunday morning found Roy looking on in fond amusement as his husband and supposed rival had a passionate conversation; better still, Roy had decided to forgo his gloves, and his wedding band glinted brightly in the light of the Hall as he leaned on his left hand. Finally, an amazingly correct rumor was started: everyone figured out that Roy and Ed had been married this entire time!

Of course, by the end of the day, there were people who were convinced that Ed was cheating on Roy. Harry would have hexed everyone who dared to say so, but the one time he'd tried, his dad had given him such a forbidding look he'd stopped for fear he'd be grounded all of next summer too.

By the time Monday rolled around, the gossip seemed to have mostly settled down again, which was a relief. Especially when he'd discovered that his dad wasn't staying for only the weekend. Major Hawkeye had apparently convinced Roy's boss that he needed a longer vacation, and had gotten several days of work owled to Hogwarts Sunday night. Roy's dismayed expression had quite a few people laughing, especially when it became clear that Ed was entirely unsympathetic.

"I'll forge your signature if you want," he'd said with a smug-looking smirk, "and you can grade the essays. We'll see how long you last."

Roy, of course, had not agreed to grade any papers, nor to help Ed out with any aspect of teaching. So Harry was mildly surprised when he went down to the lake at his usual hour before breakfast to find his dad waiting with Ed. Roy didn't usually like seeing him practice his martial arts—something about always having to fight the irrational worry that Ed would end up accidentally hurting him—so Harry had expected him to stay asleep until breakfast just because he could.

He had to fight the urge to get his hopes up. No way Ed would skip training that morning. They probably just didn't want to spend any more time apart than necessary.

"Okay, you know the drill," Ed said as Harry approached them, and Harry rolled his eyes as he ditched his cloak. (His dad made a face as he dumped it unceremoniously on the ground.) Ed followed suit, stretching his flesh arm out with a grin. "All out today. Let's see what you got."

Harry sighed, then briefly closed his eyes as he fell into stance. Then he took a deep breath to center himself (whatever that actually meant; he was sure it would click one day), looked back at Ed, and stepped smoothly forward to attack.

And was tasting dirt a second later.

"Sloppy," Ed scoffed. "You can do better than that."

"It's too early," Harry grumbled as he pushed himself up, but he didn't really have his heart in it. No complaining would get Ed to change his mind.

They fell into a familiar pattern of attack and defense (okay, more like attack and throw-into-dirt) while Roy watched on wincingly, but everything stopped when Harry's left foot connected unexpectedly with the hard metal of Ed's right knee. He was so surprised he didn't even feel the pain.

"Good!" Ed said, grabbing his foot and pushing him away hard enough that Harry flailed a little as he caught his balance. "You're letting your body do your thinking for you. That's a step in the right direction. Now—let's do something different."

Harry would've been worried at the grin that spread across his face if Ed hadn't looked over to Roy. He straightened his back and tried to look as responsible as he could while he was covered in dirt.

"Ed says you've been doing well with your alchemy training while he's been here," Roy said, grinning when Harry couldn't stop himself from fidgeting in excitement. "So we talked it over and decided you could attempt your first transmutation while I'm up here."

"Finally!" Harry said happily. Roy gave him an unimpressed look in response, so Harry smiled sheepishly back at him and tried to dial back his excitement. "What am I going to be doing?"

"There are a few different transmutations that teachers tend to reuse to make sure their pupils have learned the three basic principles correctly," Roy started in his lecturing voice, kneeling in the dirt. He pulled off one of his gloves and started drawing an array in the dirt with a finger; Harry leaned forward with wide eyes to watch. "As it turns out, Ed and I started out with the same first array. You should recognize it from your book. Can you tell me what it does?"

Harry quickly knelt on the other side of the array and peered at it. It took him a minute to realize that he was looking at it upside-down (which probably should have been obvious), but once he started turning the symbols over in his head, the purpose of them started to become clear. He hesitated briefly, not wanting to make a mistake that would prevent him from getting to _finally_ do alchemy, but looked up at Roy.

"It's to create a stone figurine?" he said. His dad raised an encouraging eyebrow at him, so he made a face before he continued. "It takes the dirt—I guess you might need to add more?—and, um, I guess it really just uses the energy of the transmutation to put pressure on the dirt to push it together into a compact form. You have to guide it into the shape you want it to be. Right?"

"That was painfully simplified," Ed muttered, just loud enough for Harry to hear.

" _Ed_ ," Roy said, exasperated, which, as always, only served to get him an unashamed grin. Roy rolled his eyes and turned back to Harry. "Ignore him. You've done great for having had no formal education in the upper sciences, _which we will rectify, Ed, don't even start_."

"I didn't even say anything!" Ed protested, but both Harry and Roy ignored him.

"So, go ahead and draw your own array. I'll make sure it's correct before we let you transmute."

Harry gave him an excited grin, then scrambled backwards far enough to make his own array without overlapping with his dad's. It was harder than Roy had made it look, and he scowled in concentration as his circle and lines kept wobbling out of his control (he was definitely going to start practicing drawing circles after this), but finally he had a finished product before him. He double-checked it against his dad's circle, then beamed up at him.

"All done?" Roy asked, levering himself up from the ground and walking over to inspect the circle himself. He walked around Harry with his hands behind his back, an exaggerated expression of concentration on his face that made Harry giggle out of sheer nerves, then finally ruffled Harry's hair. "Good job. Now, what are the three steps to any transmutation?"

"Understand, deconstruct, reconstruct," Harry recited dutifully.

"And what is the law of Equivalent Exchange?" Roy asked.

"In order to obtain or create something, something of equal value must be lost or destroyed," Harry recited again. "Which means that I can't try to create something that needs a greater amount of materials than I have at hand, or I risk a rebound. And the _last_ thing I want is a rebound." He very carefully didn't look in Ed's direction when he said that, but he heard Ed's heartfelt agreement anyway.

"Well, I guess you'll do," Roy sighed, which sounded so incredibly Ed-like that Harry gave Ed an annoyed look. Ed just smiled innocently back at him. "You should be able to create a toy horse with this array, but don't be disappointed if it doesn't come out how you imagined it, okay?" He clapped his hands on Harry's shoulders and leaned over to kiss the top of his head briefly, to Harry's annoyance, then moved away to stand beside Ed again. They both looked at him with smiles on their faces, expectant but patient as they waited.

Harry took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together. He was starting to feel the chill in the air now that he wasn't sparring with Ed or focused on what his dad was doing, but he did his best to ignore it as he looked over his array again. It was perfect—of course it was, his dad would never let him transmute if he thought something would go wrong—so he closed his eyes and imagined what he would want his horse to look like instead. Probably best not to get too creative with the pose or the mane, not on his first try, so he pictured it standing still and disinterested. Boring, but it'd work.

He opened his eyes, put his hands on either side of the array, reached down into himself to the well of power his dad and Ed had taught him how to find—and _pushed_. For a terrible second, he thought nothing was going to happen. Then he felt the energy shoot down his arms, painless but weird, and what looked like blue lightning shot across the space between his hands. He grinned widely as the dirt seemed to bubble up in front of him, and the shape of the toy slowly took form.

After a few long minutes, a very ugly and slightly misshapen horse stood in the middle of the array. Harry sat back to admire it anyway, because it still had a tail and pointy little ears and something that could probably be called a mane if you were kind.

"I did it," he whispered to himself. He looked up at his dad, whose grin probably put his own to shame. "I did it!" he repeated loudly, jumped to his feet, and, mindful of his creation, leapt at Roy to hug him as tightly as he could. Roy hugged back even tighter, pretty much squeezing all the air out of Harry's lungs, and Ed's hand tousled his hair lightly.

"Congrats, kid," Ed said in one of his gentler voices. Harry yanked one of his arms free and did his best to wrap Ed in the hug too. Ed huffed like he was annoyed, but clearly wasn't; his arm joined Roy's around his back with significantly less intention to suffocate him. "Good thing Hughes isn't here."

Roy snorted. "Oh, lord, can you imagine how many pictures he would have of this?" he asked. "He'd make Harry pose with the horse, too. Let's never let him know this happened in case he wants to recreate the scene."

They disentangled themselves with some difficulty (mostly because Roy didn't seem to want to let go), then Harry scooped up his horse to present it to his dad. It looked even uglier on a second inspection, its rear end larger on one side than the other and the middle sunken in, but his dad beamed over it as if it was the best work of art he'd ever seen.

"I'm putting this on my desk," he announced.

"Ugh, dad," Harry said, embarrassed. "Do you _have_ to? It's so ugly!"

"It's your first transmutation." Roy's face was completely serious. "It may not be the prettiest thing anyone has ever made, but for your first attempt getting something that's recognizably a horse is very good. Mine was…a lot worse."

"My first one might have exploded," Ed admitted with a sheepish grin. "Told mom we'd been fighting."

Harry still didn't want his dad displaying it for the entire office to see, but it's not like he could do anything to prevent it. So he just rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically, which of course made both of them give him amused smiles, then he glanced back at his array thoughtfully.

"Can I try again?" he asked. "I want to show Draco."

"You want to show off, you mean," Ed muttered. Harry poked him.

"Well, you didn't seem to get tired from that first one," Roy said slowly, giving Harry an assessing look. "Though that may be the adrenaline from having succeeded. You don't feel drained or ill?"

Harry shook his head quickly.

"Once more, then. See if you can improve your horse's appearance this time."

He returned to his array and carefully cleaned out the lines that still had dirt in them. Some were still a little bit wobbly, so he bit his lip and tried to fix them again. They didn't get much better. Oh well. Concentrating hard on the image of a horse in his head again, he put his hands back on the array. The transmutation started up more quickly this time, and he didn't let himself get distracted by the arcing lights or the toy taking shape in front of him.

The new horse definitely looked better than the first one, or at least less starved, and Harry happily held it up for inspection. It was still a little weird—he was undoubtedly a long way off from being able to make the type of stuff Ed was known for—but considering some of the monstrosities people had created in their Transfiguration class, he didn't think anyone could make fun of it too badly.

"Fantastic," Roy said, handing it back to him. "Now let's get you back inside for breakfast. _How_ you managed to get so dirty…" He patted ineffectually at the front of Harry's clothes, at least until Ed snickered.

"Let me get it," Ed finally said, shouldering him out of the way. He clapped his hands together once and knelt in front of Harry, then put both hands on his chest. Harry grinned as the familiar energy of Ed's alchemy washed over him, lifting the dirt from his clothes. It seemed to disappear into the air, and Harry wondered what happened to it. Could Ed make the particles so tiny that they just mixed with the air? He'd have to ask later.

"And you called him a show off," Roy sighed with a mournful shake of his head. Ed glared at him and got to his feet, turning on his heel, but didn't get far before Roy had grabbed him around the middle. "Have I thanked you yet for helping Harry so much? I know how much work you already take on."

"Please don't thank him in public," Harry moaned. "Everyone already thinks the two of you are ridiculous. You don't have to make it worse."

Roy grinned down at him again, but didn't say anything else as they all walked back up to the castle. Harry tucked his horse into his bag before he got to the Great Hall, then ran over to the Slytherin table and immediately started shoveling some food onto his plate. Draco and Pansy watched him with disgusted expressions, but Harry ignored them; between the fighting and the alchemy, he was _starving_.

"What's that your dad's got?" Blaise asked after a few minutes.

Harry looked up from his toast and grimaced. Roy had put the first horse on the table in between his and Ed's plates, and Snape was leaning across Ed to inspect himself. McGonagall was peering curiously over from Roy's other side, but was more dignified in her nosiness. Ed pushed Snape back with a laugh, and the pride on his and Roy's faces as he spoke was evident even from a distance.

"Oh, that," Harry said with forced casualness, focusing back on his breakfast. "I did my first transmutation this morning."

There was a clatter of utensils.

"You did _what_?" three voices asked in sync, the jealousy in them making Harry grin. Abandoning his food for a moment, he dug the horse back out of his bag and set it on the table right in the middle of the four of them, and beamed as they all gawked at it. Draco was the first to reach forward and snatch the toy, turning it over in his hands and inspecting it like he was trying to figure out if it was real. He glanced up at Roy and Ed again, grimaced comically, and slowly put it back down.

"You have the best parents," he said sulkily, and Harry didn't think he would ever stop grinning.

* * *

A/N: I'll start writing the real story again next chapter, _I swear_. I have it all plotted out and everything! I just. I just needed some schmoop. (Look at what I've been posting recently. ALL SCHMOOP ALL THE TIME.)


	9. Chapter 9: Two Steps Behind

A/N: It liiiiiives! With some apologies for how obnoxiously long it took me to write this chapter. This was going to be longer as sort of an apology, but given that it's been taking me like two hours to write less than a thousand words and I rarely have the time/energy to write I thought, eh, let's just post it and move on instead. So, uh, here it is? Yay?

Warnings: I AM TOO TIRED TO EDIT AND HAVE ELEVEN HOURS OF WORK TOMORROW if there are mistakes deal with it (dramatically puts on sunglasses)

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please don't sue me. I'm already broke.

* * *

 _Chapter Nine: Two Steps Behind_

Unfortunately, not even Riza Hawkeye was persuasive (or perhaps terrifying) enough to convince the military that Roy needed any more time away from Headquarters. He reluctantly left halfway through the week, clinging to them for so long that Harry was worried he actually wouldn't let go this time, but finally he stepped back with a sad smile. They both watched him walk down the path until he was outside of Hogwarts's Anti-Apparation wards, and then Ed ruffled Harry's hair.

"What do you say we skip your morning ass-kicking?" he said in a falsely bright voice, but since Harry hadn't really been feeling up to sparring anyway, he let him get away with it.

Things were back to normal the very next morning, though with the addition of the practical alchemy lessons he spent a lot less time in the dirt. They were a lot more tiring, but also a lot more satisfying; he hadn't managed to hit Ed since that one day, but his transmutations were getting better with every attempt. Ed assured him he wouldn't be doing anything new before the school year was out, just making different and more complicated statues, but since every improved piece he brought to the breakfast table created a new surge of jealousy among his friends, he didn't complain much about how long the training was going to end up taking.

He was so focused on his alchemy over the next few weeks that he was rather surprised when he walked into the Great Hall one February morning to find the room decorated tastefully for Valentine's Day. Making a face at the softly glowing heart-shaped candles hovering in the air, he set his latest "masterpiece" down on the table (a rather sad-looking centaur that was sagging a little sideways where the human torso met the horse's body), he stared with some surprise at the small pile of envelopes sitting neatly beside his plate. Hedwig pecked curiously at the statue in lieu of her usual greeting.

"What's all this?" he asked blankly, lifting up a particularly vile pink envelope with his fingertips. His friends all sniggered unpleasantly as a sickly floral scent wafted up from it.

"Mail from your admirers, Potter!" Pansy cooed, fishing one out from the bottom and showing it to him with a flourish. It was addressed, with bad calligraphy, to 'My Hero'. Harry could feel himself flush unpleasantly, and he quickly put the one he was holding down, pushing the whole pile to the side. "Don't you want to open them?"

"No, I think I'll pass," he said uncomfortably, grabbing some food. "I don't think—"

"Oh, but I'm sure they're just sweet!" Blaise protested, grabbing one himself and opening it up despite Harry's angry protest. "Here, listen: ' _Roses are red, violets are blue, I like you a lot, do you like me too?_ ' Oh, it's from one of the Montgomery sisters, how cute—"

"Oh, but it gets better!" Pansy said, eyes bright as she unfolded the paper from the envelope she'd chosen before. " _His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad_ —"

"Guys, cut it out!" Harry snapped, snatching the paper from her grasp, only to hear Draco clear his throat next.

" _How doth the busy bumblebee / with her deerstalker of detection / Learn that you always will / come first in my affection_?" he recited dramatically.

Blaise and Pansy howled in laughter, and Harry, though he was still flushed in embarrassment, paused as he was shoving the rest of the envelopes in his bag to keep them out of the grasp of his friends.

"Her _what_ of detection?" he asked.

"Deerstalker," Draco repeated matter-of-factly, showing him the paper. "I don't write the bad poetry, okay? Pity it isn't signed; I'd tell her to have her father fire her classics tutor. This is the worst didactic verse I've ever seen…"

His friends didn't get any better as Harry tried to focus on his classes that morning. Whenever his back was turned, one of them would try to dig through his bag in search of another envelope, until finally he was forced to spell it shut so that only he could get into it. Fed up with all three of them, when the break came and the class started to drift off to the courtyard they usually spent their time in, Harry brushed them off and instead stomped away to Ed's office. He might make fun of him for all the Valentines—okay, he _would_ make fun of him for all the Valentines—but at least he wouldn't actually open any of them.

And he could get Ed to look at that diary while he was at it.

He pulled the book out of his pocket as he walked, frowning down at it and flipping through the blank pages again. Not even Hermione had managed to figure out whatever secret it was hiding, despite all of the interesting tools she had pulled out of her bag to try, and Fred and George's advanced spells had done little more than get them in trouble with their older brother Percy. But Ed was a fully-trained wizard with military training and, even more importantly, he was _Edward Elric_ ; if anyone was going to reveal the book's secret, it was going to be him.

He never bothered to knock before entering Ed's office, because most of the student body was too wary of their surly professor to interrupt what they'd all come to realize were his research hours, so he was drawn up short when he realized that somebody was already there.

"Uh, hi," he said awkwardly as Ginny Weasley spun around in the chair she was sitting in. She stared back at him silently, eyes wide in surprise. Harry held up his hands to show he meant no harm, smiling, but her eyes flicked to them and only widened further. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt; I can just come back later."

"No, no, it's okay!" Ginny said, her face flushing bright red as she jumped to her feet. She bent down to gather her bag up and continued talking, "I was just going, there really wasn't anything—"

"Ginny," Ed said in an unusually gentle voice that made Harry frown in concern. "If there's anything you want to talk about, come back at any time, okay?"

"…Thank you, Professor," Ginny said quietly, not looking up at either of them. "But everything is fine. Excuse me."

She ducked out the door past Harry with her face still burning, and Harry and Ed both watched her go. Ed's worried scowl was more prominent than Harry's own faint bewilderment, but the look on his face when Harry began to ask what was going on assured him he wouldn't get any answers. Figuring Ed didn't want to tell him another student's business, he shrugged off his curiosity and closed the door behind him.

"Somebody tried to flush this down Moaning Myrtle's toilet a few weeks ago," he started in lieu of a greeting, holding the diary up. He felt strangely reluctant to part with it now that he was here, but he brought it over to Ed's desk anyway. "None of us have been able to figure out what's in it, but there has to be something in there if they wanted to get rid of it, right?"

"Seems reasonable," Ed said agreeably. He flipped through a few pages in the book, barely looking interested in it, and inspected both covers briefly. "Totally mundane, huh? Spend most of a year in a wizarding school and not an ounce of magic rubs off. Yeah, that's believable."

"So you think there's something in it?" Harry asked, scrambling into the chair Ginny had recently vacated. His own bag landed on the floor with a thump as he got his knees under him so he could lean over the desk and get a closer look at what Ed was doing. Not that he was doing much at the moment except poking at it with a cautious hand.

"It's trying way too hard to seem like a normal book," Ed explained absentmindedly. "Even a regular Muggle notebook picks up the magical residue floating around in a place like this, so if I'm not even picking up _that_ —huh. That should've smeared; this fucking ink takes forever to dry…."

Harry still hadn't figured out why, but at some point since January Ed had gotten into the habit of grading the student papers with a quill the way the wizards in England did all of their writing, and it only seemed to make his habit of getting ink all over his hands worse. This, in turn, seemed to spur him on to continue using the quill even more, as if he had to prove to someone that he was perfectly capable of using it as neatly as any of the students. Harry rolled his eyes as Ed gave his inkpot a sour look, but didn't bother to suggest he use a regular pen for the Muggle notebook instead.

"What're you doing?" Harry asked curiously when Ed let his quill hover over the paper. A couple drops of ink dripped onto it and seemed to get absorbed into the page, and when Ed turned it over they were nowhere to be found.

"I don't actually have any idea," Ed said cheerfully, scribbling something that was barely legible right-side up, let alone from Harry's view. "Should be interesting."

"Dad's going to give you his worried look for being reckless again," Harry started, pretending to be disappointed, but stopped when he realized that somebody was writing back. Their handwriting was far nicer than Ed's was, so Harry could actually read their responses to whatever Ed was saying. They introduced themselves very politely as Tom Riddle, a student at Hogwarts when the Chamber of Secrets was originally opened, and explained that they knew who had opened it last time.

" _I can show you, if you like_ ," Riddle eventually offered. " _You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him._ "

This made Ed pause. He looked up at Harry, and it was obvious that his hesitance wasn't out of concern for his own safety.

"A memory can't hurt you," Harry said eagerly. Of this he was absolutely certain. "It might be really scary or something, but it can't physically touch you."

"That's true," Ed said, grinning. Harry grinned back as he wrote in the diary again. The second Ed's quill lifted this time, the pages of the book started blowing as if they were caught in a high wind, until they stopped suddenly halfway through the month of a June. The little square for June thirteenth seemed to have turned into a miniature television screen. He looked back up at Ed again, not sure what he was supposed to do, and found Ed holding a hand out to him over the table. "Take my hand, and don't let go for anything, okay? Memories can't hurt you, but you _can_ get lost in them."

"Right," Harry said nervously. He took Ed's hand and watched as he carefully lifted the book up to his eye. He could feel himself tilting forward slowly, until suddenly his body left the chair entirely. He was flipped through a nauseating whirl of color and shadow. Then his feet hit solid ground, and he and Ed were standing in a room that Harry couldn't see through his blurry vision.

"Are you okay?" he heard Ed asked quietly, and he gave a somewhat shaky affirmative as his eyesight slowly cleared. Ed gave his hand a comforting squeeze, so he squeezed back and looked around curiously; it seemed they were in the headmaster's office, but it was clearly before Dumbledore had taken over the position. The man sitting behind the desk was old and frail, and didn't give off anything like the aura of power that Harry was used to seeing. Perhaps it was only an affectation of Dumbledore's, and not something that came naturally to the position.

The two of them watched silently as the wizard moved quietly around his office, Harry wondering with some impatience what this had to do with what Riddle had wanted to show Ed. It was really dreadfully boring, and he fidgeted restlessly, looking out at the ruby-red sunset to give himself something to do. There was a knock at the door.

They turned as a boy wearing a prefect's badge entered the room. He was taller than both Harry and Ed, but his hair was the same jet-black color as Harry's own.

"You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?" Tom Riddle asked nervously.

The short conversation that ensued had Harry's heart aching in sympathy. Riddle, like Harry, had been orphaned at a young age, but it seemed like that's where the similarities between them had ended. The other boy had been sent to an orphanage, and while that wasn't bad in and of itself, it sounded like he'd never been given the opportunity to find the loving family Harry had been lucky to receive. It hurt to think of anyone growing up so alone, and he found himself shuffling a little bit closer to Ed, who nudged him gently with an elbow. It was something he did all the time to Al, wordlessly giving comfort and showing that he cared, and it made Harry feel a little better.

When Riddle's short conversation with Dippet ended, they followed the other boy down the spiral staircase. But Riddle just stopped in the dark corridor outside, his forehead furrowed in thought, and Harry frowned at him.

"He already knows who it is, doesn't he?" he asked, voice quiet even though he knew Riddle couldn't hear him. Ed made a thoughtful noise, but didn't actually respond.

When Riddle suddenly hurried off, they rushed noiselessly after him. The corridors were eerily devoid of people, but Harry supposed that was understandable if things were so bad that the Ministry was thinking about closing the school down, so he was quite surprised when Riddle was stopped by a much younger version of Dumbledore in the entrance hall. Ed's grip on Harry's hand tightened uncomfortably as the professor gave Riddle a suspicious look and urged him to go to bed, and it didn't loosen until he was gone from view again.

Riddle ignored his command entirely, of course. He went straight down into the dungeons, but there was no secret tunnel for them to scurry down. Instead they ducked into the dark, empty Potions classroom, and Riddle pulled the door mostly closed so that he could look out onto the outside corridor. They waited silently for what had to be at least an hour. Riddle didn't move once, sitting as still as a statue as he kept careful watch. Neither Ed nor Harry were nearly as patient, but they stayed carefully alert, and didn't let go of each other for even one moment.

They finally heard someone creeping along the passage. Riddle edged silently out the door, and they followed him for several long minutes. A door creaked open, a familiar voice whispering hoarsely to whatever was on the other side.

"C'mon…gotta get yeah outa here…. C'mon now…in the box…"

Riddle leapt around the corner. "Evening, Rubeus," he said sharply.

Harry watched in shock as the two boys argued, until finally Riddle cast a spell that forced a door open. Out of it came a large, hairy creature that Harry couldn't get a good look at beyond a vague impression of a good deal of legs and eyes before Riddle was bowled over. The boy scrambled to his feet quickly, intent on the monster, but Rubeus was on him in an instant, yelling in denial—

The scene whirled into darkness. Harry and Ed crashed back into the present day Hogwarts, their hands still clasped uncomfortably across the desk. Gasping for breath and feeling sweat running down the back of his shirt, Harry stared up with wild eyes at Ed, who was looking back at him with a concerned scowl.

"It was _Hagrid_?" he asked in disbelief.

"I don't think so," Ed said slowly, prying his hand from Harry's and sitting back in his chair. The diary sat closed on the desk between them, and he gave it a suspicious frown as he picked it up. "Nothing I can think of that could petrify humans would look like that, and it's a little _too_ convenient…."

"So what was it, then?" Harry asked.

"I'm sure we'll find out," Ed said grimly, and slid the book into one of his drawers. Harry felt a weird sense of loss as it disappeared from view, but didn't ask to have it back.

xxxxx

He was startled a few days later when Ed came storming over to him before class, pulling him away from the other students and nearly knocking over Professor Flitwick on his way to open the classroom door. Harry hadn't done anything that would have pissed Ed off, so when they came to a halt in an empty room, he jerked away and crossed his arms defensively. But he didn't dare yell, as much as he wanted to.

Ed completely ignored the glare being leveled at him and put a hand on either one of Harry's shoulders. "Who else knew you had that diary?" he asked seriously.

Harry's heart leapt into his throat.

"Just my friends," he said, anger forgotten. "We all tried to figure out what it was hiding so—I guess Percy Weasley knows too, but I don't think he paid attention to _what_ Fred and George were messing with so much as they were using spells they shouldn't have learned yet…."

Ed let go of him and spun on his heel to pace the length of the room. "If any of them were going to steal it they would've just taken it from you," he muttered. "They only took the diary, so they must've known what they were looking for. Are they connected to it somehow? But you can't connect to someone else like that, unless they're not _just_ memories, which means—fuck!" Ed slammed a fist into a rickety-looking desk, dust flying everywhere, and Harry jumped back in surprise at the outburst. He couldn't stop a flinch when Ed spun back towards him, and he tried to force himself to relax when he noticed the guilty look on Ed's face. "Sorry, I just realized something. Don't tell anyone about the book getting stolen, okay? I'll figure this out."

"Is something wrong?" Harry asked cautiously.

"Don't worry about it," Ed said in a breezy tone, ushering Harry toward the door. "I told you, I'll figure this out."

But he had a bad feeling that, this time, Ed didn't have any more of an idea what to do than Harry did himself.

xxxxx

The next day was Gryffindor's second match of the year, which Harry had been looking forward to mainly in the hope that he'd get to see the team be defeated by the Hufflepuffs. Neville and Hermione had waited just inside the Great Hall for Harry to head down to the Quidditch Pitch, nervous of being in a crowd of Gryffindors just before a match, so Draco, Blaise, and Pansy had stayed behind to enjoy the end of breakfast as he left to avoid the rush. He greeted his two friends absentmindedly, and was so lost in thoughts of the diary that he barely heard their responses. Harder to ignore was the sound of that voice again, hissing loudly in the corridor—

" _Kill this time_ … _let me rip_ … _tear_ …"

Neville and Hermione jumped away from his surprised shout.

"The voice!" he said, looking around. "I just heard it again!"

Neville gave him a baffled look, but Hermione clapped a hand to her forehead.

"Harry—I think I've understood something! I've got to go to the library!" She sprinted away up the stairs.

" _What_ does she understand?" Harry asked, giving up on finding the source of the voice to give Neville a frustrated look. "And why's she got to go to the library if she understands already?"

Neville shrugged good naturedly. "When in doubt, go to the library," he said.

Harry stood still for another long moment, hoping to hear the voice again, but more people were starting to come out of the Great Hall, talking loudly in their excitement as they exited through the front doors.

"Why aren't you two outside yet?" Draco asked as he came out with Crabbe and Goyle on his heels. "And where'd Granger go?"

"To the library," Harry explained, pulling the other boy closer to his side before continuing in a hushed tone. "I heard the voice again, and she said she understood something and rushed off. Do you have _any_ idea what she could be on about?"

"Who knows what goes through her head?" Draco asked with a sneer, but didn't bother trying to hide the curiosity in his eyes. "Let's get to the Pitch before all the good seats are taken."

The teams were just starting to mount their brooms when Professor McGonagall came half marching, half running across the pitch, carrying an enormous purple megaphone.

"This match has been canceled," she called through it, addressing the packed stadium and ignoring the boos and shouts that ensued. She even managed to ignore Oliver Wood landing and running towards her without bothering to get off his broomstick, shouting about the Cup. "All students are to make their way back to the House common rooms, where their Heads of Houses will give them further information. As quickly as you can, please!"

Harry shared an unhappy look with Neville as they clambered down from the stands, but when they moved to part they found McGonagall beckoning both of them towards her. Confused, they pushed their way through the confused crowd of students with Draco, Blaise, and Pansy determinedly following behind them. McGonagall raised her eyebrows at the other three Slytherins.

"You three can head off to Slytherin," she said, shooing them away. They'd hardly started to walk off, grumbling, before she led the two of them off to the school. They weren't taken to an office this time, but instead to the infirmary, where she spoke again in an unusually gentle voice. "This will be a bit of a shock. There has been another attack…another _double_ attack."

Harry's mouth felt dry as Professor McGonagall pushed the door open. He looked over at Neville and saw that his friend looked utterly terrified, so he reached out to nudge him and give him an encouraging half-smile as they stepped inside.

Madam Pomfrey was bent over Ravenclaw girl that Harry didn't really know. Ed was next to her, flipping something over in one hand as he watched her work, his face unpleasantly serious. On the next bed was Hermione, laying completely still with her open eyes staring glassily at the ceiling.

"They were found near the library," Professor McGonagall said. "I don't suppose either of you can explain this? It was on the floor next to them…."

Ed was holding out the thing he'd been flipping: a small, circular mirror, the type girls carried to fix their makeup and hair in. Ed was giving Harry a flat look, like he expected he had some idea what was happening, but all he could do was shake his head in sync with Neville.

"Professor Elric will take you back to Slytherin, Potter," she said with a heavy sigh. "And I'll take you back to Gryffindor Tower myself, Longbottom. I need to address the students in any case."

The walk down to the dungeons was made in silence. Ed was still holding onto the mirror, occasionally looking at it with a fierce scowl, and it was clear to Harry that he'd figured out what was going on at last. He wished Ed would say something to him, but he probably didn't want to involve him in anything dangerous. Which was downright hypocritical of him, considering he'd been in the military at Harry's age, but adults were weird.

Ed stayed in the common room as Snape droned his way through the announcements, and then he was speaking urgently as the two of them left together. Harry watched with an unhappy frown as Snape bent slightly to hear whatever Ed was saying; clearly, whatever Ed was talking about, he didn't want the students to hear it.

With the two professors gone, quiet conversations broke out across the common room, but Harry ignored them as he pulled Draco into a corner alone. He hadn't said much about what he and Ed had seen in the diary to any of his friends, not wanting to worry any of them since Ed had seemed so certain the Heir hadn't actually been Hagrid, but now he told Draco—and only Draco, despite Pansy and Blaise's annoyed stares—everything.

"But how can we talk to him?" Draco asked, tapping his foot against the wall. "Hagrid's not a teacher, and with the new restrictions we can't exactly go anywhere."

"Yeah, but only Ed knows I have the cloak," Harry said. "And he can't see through it like dad can."

xxxxx

They went to see Hagrid that very night, after waiting an unusually long time for Blaise to stop giving them suspicious looks and actually go to sleep. It was difficult to get dressed again in a roomful of light sleepers—well, two light sleepers plus Crabbe and Goyle—but after a few tense minutes they finally managed to throw the Cloak over themselves and sneak out of the dorms.

The corridors were unusually crowded that night. It seemed like every corner they turned found them sneaking past another pair of patrolling figures, but Harry wasn't concerned until they saw Ed in one of the corridors with Hunter and Killer stalking something at his feet. He froze for a long minute, staring at the doorway they needed to duck through, until Draco finally pushed him forward insistently. Thankfully, Ed was clearly less on-guard than the rest of the staff, and in fact seemed to be more interested in watching the kittens' progress than in looking for Slytherin's monster.

"That was a close one," Harry said to Draco as he knocked on Hagrid's door a few minutes later. Hagrid flung the door open before Draco could respond, and they both jumped as they found themselves face-to-face with a crossbow and the sound of Fang's booming barks.

"Oh," Hagrid said, lowering the weapon. "What're you two doin' here?"

"Why are you opening your door with a _bow_?" Harry asked.

"Doesn' matter—" Hagrid muttered. "Sit down—I'll make tea—"

But whatever had caused Hagrid to open his door with a loaded weapon was making him so shaky that he hardly seemed capable of doing anything. His hands had been steady on the bow, but he nearly extinguished the fire spilling water from the kettle, and then proceeded to smash the teapot. Harry and Draco shared a worried look and didn't dare talk for a long moment as he poured mugs of boiling water and started to put out a large slab of fruitcake.

A loud knock at the door had them all panicking again. Hagrid dropped the cake with a clatter as Harry and Draco dove into corner with the Cloak thrown hastily over their heads again, and then Hagrid was aiming his crossbow at none other than Professor Dumbledore. The headmaster was followed by a man Harry vaguely recognized as Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic.

"Bad business, Hagrid," Fudge said in clipped tones as the large man dropped into a chair. "Very bad business. Had to come. Four attacks on Muggle-borns. Things've gone far enough. Ministry's got to act."

"I never," Hagrid said, his eyes on Dumbledore. "You know I never, Professor Dumbledore, sir—"

"I want it understood, Cornelius, that Hagrid has my full confidence," Dumbledore said with a sharp frown aimed at the Minister. Harry was somewhat relieved to find that the Headmaster was at least more protective of the people who had proven their loyalty to him than he seemed to be of his students. It was a shame he couldn't do more to keep Hagrid out of Azkaban.

Worse still was his complete helplessness in the face of Lucius's insistence that hi step down as Headmaster of the school. Draco kept cringing back from the conversation every time his father opened his mouth, which Harry would have found hilarious in any other situation, but at the moment he was too busy being horrified as Hagrid's voice rose ever higher in denial.

"If the governors want my removal, Lucius, I shall of course step aside—" Dumbledore said, his eyes never leaving the younger man's despite the interruptions from Fudge and Hagrid. "However, you will find that I will only _truly_ have left this school when non here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it."

Harry nearly snorted when he saw the Headmaster's eyes flicker over to where he and Draco were hiding. Loyalty was one thing Dumbledore definitely didn't have from him, no matter how badly he clearly wanted it.

"Admirable sentiments," Lucius said, bowing. "We shall all miss your—er—highly individual way of running things, Albus, and only hope that your successor will manage to prevent any—ah— _killins_."

"Killins?" Draco echoed in horrified disbelief, his voice barely a whisper in Harry's ear as Lucius strode out the door. Harry elbowed him in the ribs.

Fudge was waiting for Hagrid to leave the house, but Hagrid took a deep breath and, carefully not looking at them, said, "If anyone wanted ter find out some _stuff_ , all they'd have ter do would be ter follow the _spiders_. That'd lead 'em right! That's all I'm sayin'."

Then he finally left with Fudge on his heels. Harry and Draco stared at each other dismally for a long minute.

"Please tell me I don't act like that," Draco eventually said petulantly.

"Well," Harry said, trying to decide the right thing to say. "You're not _that_ obnoxious, at any rate."

* * *

A/N: Ugh, I hate this chapter. Um. One or two more chapters to go, depending on how much I get carried away with certain events? And then I'll need to finish up some plotting and a side story before the third book.

* * *

 **OMAKE** (I definitely 100% headcanon that Snape is secretly fond of Luna but will die before he admits it.)

"Can I help you, Miss Lovegood?" Severus asked in his direst voice, not that he suspected it would do him any good. He'd noticed from the very first day of class that the girl was strangely immune to even his most threatening glares, and, indeed, when he finally looked up from the papers he'd started grading, she was merely gazing back at him with a beauteous smile. Severus narrowed his eyes, suspicious. Lovegood's smile didn't fade at all, but the dreamy gaze momentarily sharpened into something calculating.

"I just wanted to congratulate you, Professor," Lovegood eventually said, her soft voice distant. Severus's eyebrow rose in curiosity as Scamander loudly whispered 'Luna, don't!'

Severus shot the unfortunate boy a sharp look and very slowly, very deliberately set his quill to stand in his inkpot. "And what have I accomplished that requires congratulations?" he asked carefully.

"Everyone is saying you just married that man who was here in the beginning of the semester," she answered earnestly. "He seemed very lovely!"

Severus felt his cheeks turning red even as a sneer worked its way onto his face. This was Potter's fault. By accident, perhaps, and possibly he wasn't even pleased by it himself, but it was most assuredly his fault. "I am not," he said, enunciating clearly so that every student would be certain to understand him, "married to Edward. I am not married to anyone. And I think it would do you all well if you would focus more on your potions than on my love life, which is absolutely none of your business!"

Most of the class cringed as Severus's voice raised on the last sentence, but all he received from Lovegood was a sad sigh.

"I'm very sorry to hear that," she said sincerely. "I was hoping he could make you happier."

Severus took a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing himself not to yell. It never helped to yell at Luna Lovegood; it only caused her to become even more absent-minded than usual, and then Merlin only knew what would happen to her classwork. He still hadn't sorted out how she'd managed to make a Doubling Draught out of her Shrinking Solution.

"Miss Lovegood, return to your seat," he said wearily. "And don't ask me any more questions that don't pertain to the lesson."

"Yes, sir," she replied, looking a little downcast as she returned to the cauldron she was sharing with the Smith boy. Smith leaned over and started talking to her, looking irritated, and Severus could only imagine that he was upset that she had asked about their feared professor's supposed new husband. Lovegood took the Hufflepuff boy's lecture in stride, calmly moving on to the next step of the potion and utterly ignoring him.

Pushing down a strange surge of fondness for the girl, Severus got to his feet and moved to prowl around the classroom again. Better keep the brats preoccupied with terror lest they get brave enough to ask any other embarrassing questions.


	10. Chapter 10: Weapon

A/N: Oh, look, it's…already been a month? I'm not sure when this happened. I think time is playing tricks on me. THIS IS NOT OKAY, TIME.

Warnings: …I'm evil? 8D

Disclaimer: Does anybody read these? I'm not sure why I write these anyway. I'm not even clever.

* * *

 _Chapter Ten: Weapon_

Hagrid's tip to follow the spiders would have been a lot more useful if there seemed to be any left in the castle. But as hard as Harry and Draco looked, neither of them could find a single one. Their efforts were somewhat hampered by their inability to travel the hallways with the freedom they were accustomed to, but their dormitories _were_ in the dungeons and were known to have their own collection of spiders hiding in dark nooks and crannies. Still, even these were eerily empty when Harry eventually dragged up the nerve to go investigating a few of them.

They finally caught a break early one morning during their Herbology class, while a grumpy Draco was practicing looking threatening by glaring at Michael Corner every time he clipped a Shrivelfig. Corner's increasingly nervous look had Harry turning away so he could laugh without being too mean, and when he glanced out of the window he caught sight of several large spiders scuttling across the grounds in an unnaturally straight line. He reached out quickly to grab hold of Draco's arm.

" _What?_ " Draco snapped, turning his glare on Harry and snipping off another withered stalk. Harry just rolled his eyes and pointed out the spiders. "Oh, good eye. They kind of look like they're heading for the Forest, don't they?"

Neither of them was terribly pleased about that. Harry didn't exactly have fond memories of the place outside of Firenze, and Draco had grown up with stories of the monsters that were likely to be found there. Heading into the Forest to follow a bunch of spiders, even on Hagrid's advice, didn't seem like a particularly bright move.

Surrounded by other Slytherins, they knew better than to talk about following the spiders during class. Instead they put off any further conversation until late that night, after everyone else had gone off to bed already. Professor McGonagall had insisted on a halt to Harry's alchemy and fighting lessons for the year (to Ed's visible annoyance), so they both had the morning off with the rest of the second year Slytherins and would be able to make up for the late night by sleeping in instead.

"We _can't_ go into the forest!" Draco insisted, arms crossed in front of himself defensively as they sat in front of the fire. Even in the summer, the dungeons needed a little bit of extra warmth at night to keep people comfortable. "It's one thing when Hagrid's with you, but without any of the teachers there, what'll happen if we get attacked by a werewolf or a—a chimaera or—"

" _Please_ don't theorize about chimera being in the Forest," Harry said quickly, feeling a little sick. He knew Draco was talking about the Greek monsters and not the alchemical creations, but Harry knew just enough about the latter that he didn't even want to think about them. "Anyway, Hagrid wouldn't give us information that would get us hurt! Well, not on purpose."

"It's the 'not on purpose' part that worries me," Draco muttered.

"Yeah…," Harry agreed unhappily. The whole thing with Norbert the year before was proof enough of that. Hagrid meant well, but he was so big he just didn't have a normal person's sense of danger. The spiders could lead them straight into something that would be fun for Hagrid, but fatal for second year wizards. There was only one other person he could think of that might survive Hagrid levels of danger. "Hey. Why don't we ask Ed to come with us?"

Draco stared at Harry like he'd grown another head. "He's a _teacher_ ," he pointed out slowly. "He'll just take care of it himself and then we'll never find out what's going on!"

"No, I think he'll understand," Harry said, chewing on his bottom lip as he debated how much he could tell Draco about Ed's time in the military. If he said too much, his friend might just figure out who Ed was. "Look, he used to travel all over Amestris and get up to all kinds of dangerous stuff when he was our age. He can't tell us we're not allowed to do the same thing!"

"We'll see," Draco said darkly.

Harry wrote a short note and gave it to Ed after class the next morning, frowning up at him determinedly when Ed gave him a disbelieving look. Ed rolled his eyes and took a regular pen out of his pocket. Once he'd scribbled something at the bottom of the note, he shoved it back into Harry's hands and walked away to usher the class out the door.

All it said, in capital letters and written over three times as if to bold it, was " **NO**."

"I _told_ you!" Draco whispered angrily.

Harry shoved him away so he could pull his only Muggle pen out of his bag and write on the note again as they walked. He kept the pen only for emergencies, and it always attracted attention from Purebloods who couldn't figure out what it was. Ignoring his classmates' questioning looks, he ran up to Ed again and poked his hand with the note until he irritably snatched it away.

" **NO** ," he wrote back again.

" **HYPOCRITE** ," Harry wrote, and shoved it back into Ed's hand.

Ed stopped walking to stare down at Harry with a thoughtful and frustrated look on his face. Harry glared right back at him, crossing his arms. Draco sidled up next to him and did the same. Somewhere behind them he could hear Pansy and Daphne giggling about their actions. Finally, shaking his head as if he couldn't quite believe what he was doing, Ed gave them another note.

It told them what corridors he was going to be walking that night and that they had better not dare leave the castle without him or there would be 'hell to pay'. Harry and Draco ignored the threat and grinned at each other in triumph as the class flowed around them to chase after Ed again.

"What are you two idiots up to _this_ time?" Blaise asked suspiciously, coming up behind them. Harry shoved the note quickly into his pocket.

"You can't get in trouble for something you don't know about!" Harry said brightly.

"Please don't get yourselves in trouble again," Pansy moaned. "Or hurt like last year. We don't need your dad terrorizing the staff."

"I don't know, watching him berate Dumbledore was kind of funny," Blaise mused.

"Would you four hurry up?" Ed barked from the other end of the corridor, and they dropped the conversation to catch up instead. Nobody liked having Ed mad at them, even (especially) Harry.

That night, after waiting an annoyingly long time for Blaise to stop talking to them (Harry suspected he was trying to prevent them from doing anything stupid), they silently threw on some clothes and ducked out of the dormitories with the invisibility cloak. The corridors were as crowded and difficult to traverse as the night they'd snuck out to visit Hagrid, but at least this time when they saw Ed Harry didn't freeze in fear of getting caught. They snuck up to him as quietly as they could, but Ed still turned towards them when they were still a couple feet away.

"How do you _do_ that?" Harry sulked.

"You really think I can't hear your footsteps?" Ed asked, his whispered disbelief probably louder than he'd meant it to be. "Don't talk again until we're out by Hagrid's cabin. I swear if you get me caught sneaking students out of the school, Roy grounding you is the last thing you'll have to worry about."

Harry pouted at him, not that he could see it, but obligingly followed Ed out of the castle as silently as he could. Mindful of Ed's criticism of their walking, he tried to tiptoe even more quietly than before, but found that it slowed them down. Draco shoved him to get him moving faster, clearly warier of Ed's warning than Harry was himself, and Harry sighed. He'd get it right eventually.

Once they were hidden from view on the far side of Hagrid's cabin, Harry tucked the Cloak out of sight as Ed pulled a couple of vials out of one of his pockets.

"What's this?" Harry asked curiously, popping it open and grinning as a large drop of golden liquid leapt out of it.

" _Felix Felicis_ ," Ed replied with a sour look. "I figured if we're going into the Forest, you two are going to need all of the luck you can get. Go ahead and drink it; I made it myself."

Harry and Draco shared a nervous look, but both of them quickly did as told. There was only enough in the vial for a small mouthful, which wouldn't last them longer than the night.

"Hey, can we get some more of this?" Draco asked hopefully. "I'm not looking forward to Professor Flitwick's test on Monday."

"You're pushing your luck already, kid," Ed said. "Come on, let's get this party started."

Ed had them step into the forest before he had them light their wands, and almost immediately they found a small trickle of spiders scurrying away from them down the path. Ed shook his head, looking bemused and unimpressed.

They followed the spiders for about twenty minutes, listening hard for any sounds that might hint as to what Hagrid had sent them into the Forest for. The trees gradually thickened around them until the darkness outside of their combined circle of light grew physically oppressive, and Harry and Draco huddled in close to either side of Ed. Harry was growing more nervous the further they went into the Forest, and this only increased when he noticed that the spiders were leaving the path.

Ed stopped walking, a hand on his hip as he watched the spiders move out of sight. "I don't like this," he said.

"Hagrid told us not to leave the path when we had detention last year," Harry said nervously. "But if we don't follow them, we won't find out what's going on."

"Guess I can't argue that," Ed sighed. He turned to them with a thoughtful frown, tapping his wand against his right arm so that the shadows around them jumped sporadically. "Okay. Hold still."

Draco gave Harry a questioning look, but Harry didn't know what Ed was doing and just shook his head. It would be useless to ask questions until Ed was done, since he was already tapping at Harry's clothes and muttering under his breath. It didn't really sound like spellwork, and it probably wasn't—Ed certainly didn't need to say any of his incantations out loud—but Harry couldn't make out what it actually was. Maybe he was making up a new spell on the spot. It wouldn't be a surprise.

After a minute of the muttering, it felt like an invisible layer of magic was pressed suddenly against his skin. The feeling faded, and Harry rubbed at his arms uncomfortably as Ed turned to Draco and cast the spell on him more quickly.

"Ugh, what was _that_?" Draco asked, shivering dramatically.

"Protection spell," Ed said. "Good luck will only take you so far if you don't have anything to back it up with. Now come on, before I come to my fucking senses."

They stepped off the path. The combined light from their wands was barely enough to illuminate the ground, and the trek was much more difficult with the natural obstructions of the trees in their way. Harry started to lose track of time as the ground sloped smoothly downwards.

He was in the middle of a yawn when Ed stopped suddenly, and would've ran straight into his back if Draco hadn't grabbed him by the elbow.

"What is it?" Draco asked sharply, peering into the darkness surrounding them.

"Something's out there," Ed replied. His voice was very quiet, and he was turning toward their left with his wand at the ready. A moment later, Harry could hear it too: whatever it was, it was big, and it was making a lot of noise as it headed straight for them.

"Oh no," Draco moaned in a high voice. "This is awful, I should've known this would happen when Hagrid sent us out here—"

"Shut up!" Harry snarled. "It'll hear you!"

"I wouldn't worry about that," Ed said dryly. "It's already seen us."

There wasn't time for any of them to say anything else. A loud clicking noise was all the warning Harry got before something grabbed him around the middle and lifted him straight off the ground. As he struggled, he saw Draco being lifted into the air next, and heard a flurry of angry cursing from Ed. The darkness lit up with a few bright lights as Ed cast several spells at whatever was carrying them even deeper into the forest, but whatever he cast clearly didn't work and he soon subsided.

It was hard to tell how much longer they traveled while they were being carried by the monsters. One moment he hadn't been able to see anything but his own hand still grasping his lit wand, and the next the darkness had lifted as they came out on the ridge of a vast hollow. There were no trees in the hollow at all, but instead there was far too many horse-sized spiders surrounding a domed web in the center. They closed rank as the one carrying Harry stepped down the slope among them.

The spiders released them, and Harry and Draco fell to the ground on all fours. Ed was more graceful, landing on his feet and immediately moving to stand protectively in front of them.

"Aragog!" the spider that had been carrying Harry called, and a spider that was even larger than all the others slowly emerged. Its milky white eyes didn't look directly at them, but its blindness didn't make Harry feel any better about their situation.

"What is it?" it asked.

"Men," the spider that had carried Draco said.

"Kill them," said Aragog. "I was sleeping."

"We're friends of Hagrid's!" Harry shouted desperately, his heart pounding in his throat. Ed's hand shot out in a sharp cutting motion, and Harry flinched.

"Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before," Aragog said slowly.

"Hagrid's been sent to jail," Ed said in an unusually careful voice. "They think he's been setting something on the students, and he sent us here to find out what it is."

Aragog made a furious clicking noises with his pincers, and all of the spiders surrounding them echoed it eerily.

"But that was years ago," Aragog said. "Years and years ago. I remember it well. That's why they made him leave the school. They believed that _I_ was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets. They that thought Hagrid had opened the Chamber and set me free."

"You didn't come from the Chamber," Ed said. It wasn't a question, and it only reinforced Harry's theory that Ed had figured out what was happening already.

Aragog explained how Hagrid had come to take care of him and insisted that he'd never killed anybody, not even the girl who'd been found dead in the bathroom the last time the Chamber had been opened. But when Ed asked what _had_ killed her, Aragog refused to say, with an anger and fear so strong it chilled Harry. What could possibly be so terrifying that even a gigantic, venomous spider would be afraid?

"Right," Ed said, starting to back up and gently pushing Harry and Draco behind him. "Thanks for your help. We'll leave you alone now."

"Leave?" Aragog said. "I think not…."

Ed's frenzy of cursing at this statement was impressive by even his standards, but to Harry's surprise he shoved his wand away when he spun around to face the rest of the spiders.

"This is why I didn't want to fucking let you out here!" he yelled at Harry, clapping loudly and stepping passed them. He knelt on the ground, and the blue light that heralded his alchemy danced around his hands.

Harry had heard a lot about how impressive the Fullmetal Alchemist was; it was one of the stories that you couldn't escape when you lived in Amestris for any length of time. The power and genius of the teenage state alchemist was practically a myth, and Harry had always assumed that most of the things he'd heard Ed was capable of must be exaggerated. But as spikes shot up from the ground, impaling spiders around them in an area greater than Harry had thought would be possible for an alchemist to manage without draining all of his energy, he had to wonder just what in the world Ed actually was capable of.

His gawking was cut short as he felt a hard metal hand wrap around his wrist.

"Run!" Ed snarled, and dragged him and Draco passed the sea of spikes he'd created and up and out of the hollow.

Not that they were safe yet. Spiders that Ed hadn't managed to impale thundered after them, and the sheer size of them made them faster than humans on foot. Ed forced Harry and Draco ahead of him, sliding to a halt and clapping his hands again. He pulled a short blade out of his automail, shredding his glove to pieces in the process.

"Ed!" Harry screamed, turning in a panic even as Draco tried to yank him away.

"Keep fucking moving!" Ed yelled back, and the first spiders that came up on him were caught in another wave of spikes he alchemized them from the ground again.

Harry turned and ran. He didn't have a choice. There was no way Ed could kill all of the spiders, assuming Harry hadn't talked him on this stupid adventure only to get him killed, and it was only a matter of time before one of them caught up to him and Draco. Tears blurred Harry's vision and he wiped at them clumsily, because he needed to be able to see where he was going, but Ed was back there somewhere alone and he was probably going to get killed, and then his dad was going to be _devastated—_

He tripped over a root he hadn't been able to see, and when he fell to the ground he dragged Draco down with him, because Draco had never loosened the death grip on his hand. A spider that had apparently been right on their heels without either of them noticing bowled right by them. Before it could recover itself several loud ' _thwock_ ' noises announced the arrows that embedded themselves in its eyes.

"Harry Potter," a faintly familiar voice said, and Harry looked up with a start to see the centaur Firenze leaning over them with a bow and arrow ready in his hands. "Climb onto my back. We must flee swiftly before any of the rest of Aragog's brood arrives. You must not be allowed to die this night."

Harry scrambled to his feet, and he and Draco were seated not a moment too soon. Another spider came barreling out of the trees just as Firenze took off, and several other centaurs closed ranks around him. Harry didn't recognize any of them, and couldn't help but notice that none of them seemed as angry as Bane had been about a centaur carrying a human on his back. Harry was grateful for this, because he knew that he and Draco would have never made it out of the forest without their help.

Unfortunately, Firenze and his friends didn't stick around after they deposited Harry and Draco on the edge of the forest close by Hagrid's house. Explaining that they had to help restore the equilibrium of the forest, they disappeared too quickly for either of them to ask about Ed.

"He'll be okay," Harry said quietly, with more conviction than he felt. He sat down on Hagrid's doorstep and stared into the trees without blinking. "He _has_ to be okay."

Draco didn't look convinced. But he sat down beside Harry, shoulder to shoulder, and didn't express his doubts, and it was enough.

* * *

A/N: Oh, look, it's a cliffhanger! At the end of a short chapter! Honestly, there wouldn't be a cliffhanger, but I meant to post a chapter last week before I went on vacation and I…didn't. I've been having trouble writing this story for some reason. So, uh. You get this instead. Next chapter is the last one! Hopefully it will be a lot longer! And. Not take a month to write. (Oh, who am I kidding? It will totally take a month to write.)


	11. Chapter 11: Feel This (pt 1)

A/N: I thought _for sure_ I would have this out in the beginning of the month but, oh look, August is almost over and this book…isn't. Sigh. I figure a half a chapter is better than no chapter, so I forced this out. Don't know when to expect the rest of it; life is extremely busy and stressful right now.

Warnings: none?

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It's all very terrible.

* * *

 _Chapter Eleven: Feel This (pt. 1)_

Harry wasn't sure how long he and Draco spent huddled in front of Hagrid's door and blinking drowsily into the forest, but Harry never slept. Draco occasionally dozed on and off, his head lolling against Harry's shoulder for a few minutes until he jerked himself awake with a start and did his best to pretend he hadn't fallen asleep at all. It would have been funny at any other time, but at the moment it only gave Harry one more thing to worry about.

"You can go back to the dorm if you want," he said quietly.

"Because worrying about you and Ed from bed is so much better than doing it here," Draco responded, shifting to lean more comfortably against Harry's side. Harry spared him a brief smile.

A dark figure emerged from the shadows of the trees in the next moment. Harry nudged Draco off of him and stumbled to his feet, wand in his hand because his dad and Ed had told him to always have his wand ready in case a friendly face wasn't as friendly as it first appeared, and watched it limp steadily closer. His whole body was shaking with the need to run forward and make sure Ed was okay, but what if it wasn't him, what if somebody else had been in the forest tonight too…?

"Harry?" the figure said in a familiar voice when it finally looked up and saw the two of them waiting for it. "Why the fuck are you still out here?"

That was _definitely_ Ed.

Harry's legs wanted to give out in relief, but he ran to Ed instead and threw his arms around his waist. He tried to hide his tears in Ed's chest, but they came out in loud, half-panicked sobs. Ed stiffened in surprise and Harry felt absolutely _mortified_ , but he couldn't seem to stop himself no matter how hard he tried.

"Hey, it's okay," Ed said in a soothing voice, wrapping his arms around Harry so gently that he stopped crying mostly due to how weird it felt. "I'm fine, see? Not even bleeding. That's kind of a record for me."

Harry sniffled miserably. "I thought you were gonna die," he muttered to Ed's shirt.

"What, and get taken out by a bunch of fuckin' spiders?" Ed asked, sounding insulted. "Roy would put that shit on my tombstone. _'Beloved brother. Devoted husband. Killed by giant bug.'_ And don't tell me he wouldn't put bug instead of arachnid just to piss me off."

Harry managed something of a watery giggle at Ed's imagined epitaph and forced himself to pull away. He shot an embarrassed glance towards Draco, and was relieved to see that Draco was being strangely tactful: his friend had stopped some distance away and appeared to be determinedly studying his astronomy.

"You're really okay?" he asked anxiously, looking down at Ed's legs as if he was going to be able to see any injury in the dark. "You were limping when you came out of the forest. Madame Pomfrey's a really good Healer, you know; Neville broke his arm last year and she fixed it right away."

"I got whacked pretty good, but it's just a bruise," Ed said, ruffling Harry's hair lightly. "I'll go to her if I need anything, but I've got some salve in my room. Are either of _you_ hurt? Draco?"

"We're fine," Harry said quickly, looking over to Draco for confirmation. "Right? I was so worried about Ed, I didn't even ask—"

"Not even bleeding," Draco said, with a bit of a cheeky grin. Ed snorted, obviously recognizing his own words being parroted back at him. "I think I twisted my ankle when we fell, but she'll be suspicious if I show up too early in the morning. I guess I could pretend to slip in the shower or something."

"Oh, or you could trip on the stairs on the way to breakfast!" Harry suggested. "And we can try to find a way to pin it on Weasley—"

"I didn't hear that last part," Ed announced loudly. Harry looked up at him innocently. "Let's get you two back inside before sunrise. Clean you up a little first…."

Three quick claps out of sight of the castle later, they were all relatively cleared of dirt and ready to go. Harry and Draco ducked back under the Cloak with a grimace—the close confines weren't kind on their noses after the night they'd had—and Ed led them through the dark hallways back to the Slytherin dorms. The corridors seemed to have cleared a great deal while they were out, or else Ed was better at avoiding people than they were, because they didn't run into a single person on their way back.

Harry hesitated at the entrance to their common room even after Draco had whispered the password to get back inside. The two of them scuffled briefly while Ed looked on with raised eyebrows, and then Harry left the Cloak and shooed Draco inside.

"I want to talk to Ed!" he whispered angrily. He couldn't see him to be certain, but judging by the long pause before the door closed, he thought Draco might have mocked him. Harry stuck his tongue out at the door for good measure, then turned back to Ed.

Ed scowled back at him, impatient and already irritated. As this was Ed's usual mood, it didn't really bother Harry, so he let himself look around the corridor a bit nervously before he started talking.

"I just wanted to say that, um, with your epitaph thing," Harry said hesitantly, hoping Ed couldn't see the blush that he could feel crawling across his cheeks. "You know, the 'devoted husband' stuff and all. Just, I think he might add something about you being a pretty great dad too. Is all."

Ed looked speechless. Better yet, Harry clearly wasn't the only person embarrassed by his words; Ed's face turned as red as Harry's must be. Feeling a little better just because of that, he darted forward again and gave Ed another brief hug.

"Good night!" he said brightly, and then darted into the common room before Ed could recover. Hopefully neither of them would ever have to bring this moment up again.

xxxxx

It wasn't until Harry was nearly asleep that the conversation with Aragog that night really seemed to process, and he sat up in bed with a startled exclamation of "Moaning Myrtle!"

"Say what?" Draco asked, sounding like he was still mostly asleep.

"Aragog said that the girl who died fifty years ago was found in a bathroom. What if it's Moaning Myrtle? I have to tell Ed!"

"You can't tell him _now_!" Draco said as Harry reached for his clothes again. "Are you trying to get caught? Just wait until you see him in class again."

Harry groaned with disappointment, but had to admit Draco had a point. He curled back up in bed again, and even though his head was spinning with the new revelation, he was asleep in seconds.

In the morning, the first thing he realized was that it was the beginning of the weekend and it would be _days_ until he'd be able to talk to Ed again. He was twitchy with annoyance the entire time, to the point where even Blaise was bothered by his inability to sit still. If there had been any way for him to get away from the common room, he would have wandered off somewhere to leave them in peace, but they weren't allowed out of the dormitories unless they were accompanied by a teacher.

They were all relieved to go back to classes when the weekend was over. Harry's fidgeting was less annoying in the morning classes while he tried to focus on the professors, and their first class after lunch was Defense Against the Dark Arts. He hovered by Ed's desk as everyone else got into their seats, smiling sheepishly as Ed gave him an annoyed look.

"What do you want _this_ time?" he asked suspiciously.

"I just wanted to tell you something without anyone else listening," Harry said hopefully. Ed sighed and rolled his eyes, but obliged him by walking out of the room and closing the door behind them.

"If you think I'm taking you out on another adventure like the last one—"

"No, I think I've had enough of spiders," Harry said seriously. Ed moved to swat him upside the head, but slowly enough so he had plenty of time to duck it. "Aragog said that the girl who died before was found in a bathroom. I just thought, what if it was Moaning Myrtle? She haunts the girls' toilets and all."

Ed glared at him thoughtfully. "I guess it's worth checking out. I'll talk to her after class— _alone_."

"I know," Harry sighed. "I'll behave. I don't want to worry dad again."

Ed gave him a faint smile, ruffling his hair before ushering him back into the classroom.

Harry didn't hear anything about Ed's conversation with Myrtle after that. To much complaining from his classmates, Professor McGonagall had announced that the finals were going to be happening soon, and they were all too focused on studying for them to care much about the Chamber of Secrets any more. Since nothing else had happened since the Quidditch match had been canceled, it was easy to forget why most of them were so horribly under-prepared for the end of year tests.

At least until the day they heard Professor McGonagall's voice echoing through the corridors in place of the bell that usually signaled break: _"All students to return to their House dormitories a once. All teachers return to the staffroom. Immediately, please."_

Harry shared a confused look with his friends, but they were all quick to gather their belongings and make their way back to the dungeons. Nobody wanted to cross McGonagall on even the best of days, and her magnified voice had sounded stressed.

"What do you think's going on?" Daphne asked in an undertone. "Another attack?"

"After this long?" Blaise scoffed, but his voice wasn't as doubtful as he'd obviously been trying to make it sound.

They bunched together in a nervous group as they traveled the corridors, and even once they'd entered the common room they didn't move far from each other. Harry, Draco, Blaise, and Pansy squeezed themselves together on one couch, but they couldn't find much to say. The rest of the House seemed unable to keep themselves from trying to guess who had been turned into stone this time.

The whispers cut off abruptly when the common room's door opened. Harry expected Professor Snape to sweep in, scowling around the room until everyone was looking at him, but instead it was Ed. His glare was actually more impressive than anyone had been expecting to face, and when his gaze landed on Harry all of his friends flinched.

"Harry," Ed said, "come with me."

The calm in his voice was more unnerving than any of his usual yelling. Harry left his things where they were, figuring Draco or Pansy would grab them for him later, and followed him out of the room. He didn't dare say anything before Ed did, but it wasn't until they were coming up on the corridor where Mrs. Norris had been Petrified that Ed spoke again.

"Ginny Weasley's been taken into the Chamber," he said quietly. "I've been trying to get around the magic protecting the entrance into it, but the shit's been set into the stone for so long I haven't been able to get anywhere, and now I'm out of time. The only way to get in is with the right password. I think it's in Parseltongue."

Harry felt his eyes widen in surprise. "You want me to open it," he said.

"I want you to try," Ed corrected, then turned and put his hands on Harry's shoulders. The expression on his face was _weird_ , all worry and regret and other things he never associated with the Fullmetal Alchemist, and the brusque tone he tended to speak in had disappeared. "The last thing I want to do is drag you into this, Harry. There's a basilisk in that Chamber, and I sure as hell don't want you to go up against that thing. But Parseltongue is one thing I can't fake or teach myself, and I'm going to need to bring you with me just in case. You're going to do _only_ what I tell you to do, okay? I'm here to make sure you don't get hurt."

"Okay," Harry said. "But what if—"

"Only what I say!" Ed snapped. He took a deep breath, then gave Harry a weird smile. "Roy's gonna fucking kill me as it is. C'mon, let's say hi to Myrtle."

Moaning Myrtle looked up as they entered the bathroom together, and her whole face seemed to brighten when she looked at Ed.

"Oh, hello, Professor!" she said in an unusually cheerful tone. She floated over to them and hovered within arm's reach of Ed as he strode across the room. "Have you thought of another spell to try on the sink today?"

"Something like that," Ed said, giving her a warm smile. He steered Harry in front of the last sink in the room and pointed out a tiny snake that was etched into the copper tap. It wasn't really much more than a squiggly line.

"Open up," Harry said to it, making a face at it when his command didn't work. He hoped there wasn't a specific phrase he was supposed to say to it.

"That was English," Ed said.

Harry sighed. The one time he'd actually _spoken_ the language of the snakes, he'd actually been facing a live snake, so maybe that's what he needed? He didn't really want to ask Ed to summon one, though. He squinted at the drawing and tried to make himself believe that the tongue was flickering in the torchlight—

"Open up," he said again, and this time he heard the hiss of Parseltongue underneath what he could have sworn was English. The tap he was staring at glowed white and spun, and Ed pulled him back as the sink sank into the floor beneath it. It exposed a pipe large enough for a grown man to fit into.

"Perfect," Ed said, ruffling his hair. Harry didn't bother to fix it. "I'll go in first. Wait a couple minutes in case I get attacked by something down there, then follow me. You ready?"

Harry forced himself not to grin. "Ready!"


	12. Chapter 12: Feel This (pt 2)

A/N: AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. (That's the sound I was making in my head the entire time I was _very determinedly_ attempting to write this. Which took me the better part of a day.)

Warnings: Nothing? IDK. I didn't even edit it though.

* * *

 _Chapter Twelve: Feel This (pt. 2)_

Ed was waiting for him when he finally shot out of the far end of the slimy pipe, scowling at the walls of the tunnel they were in. He turned when Harry started making disgusted noises about all of the muck coated to his clothes, something almost like a smile on his face.

"You'd might as well get used to it," he said heartlessly as Harry wiped a handful off the back of his head. "It's not going to get any cleaner the deeper we go."

"Are you sure you can't learn Parseltongue?" Harry asked. "If I'd known I was going to be covered in this stuff I don't think I'd have wanted to come."

Ed snorted, but didn't respond. He was peering down the tunnel with his wand held high in the air, the bright light shining from the tip barely making a dent in the darkness. Harry fidgeted with impatience.

"Can't see a fucking thing," Ed eventually muttered, then turned back to Harry with sharp eyes. "I probably should've done this before we jumped down here. Stand still."

Harry did his best not to move as Ed leaned over him casting silent spells, but he was too worried about Ginny to prevent it from leaking through. Ed sighed loudly and smacked him with his wand more than once, not that it helped.

A few long minutes later, they were finally on the move again. Ed cautiously led the way down the tunnel, making no sound at all, while Harry crunched and echoed along behind him. The quiet was more unnerving than any sounds would have been, and Harry jumped at his shadow more than once.

When they reached a bend in the tunnel, Ed stopped walking and gestured for Harry to stay put. Harry nodded his understanding, but once Ed had disappeared into the darkness he peeked cautiously around the bend himself. Something was lying across the tunnel, dark and unmoving. Harry chewed on his bottom lip nervously as Ed approached it, his imagination flashing with images of a great beast rising and killing Ed in one swift blow.

But Ed waved him over, and Harry rushed forward to see what it was for himself.

He almost drew back when he realized it was a shed snake skin, impossibly long and a shade of green he'd never seen before on an animal.

"Basilisk skin," Ed said in a flat voice. "Never heard of one this big."

"That means it's really old, right?" Harry asked, thinking about his text books. "How did it live so long?"

Ed gestured at the animal bones littering the floor of the tunnel and shrugged. Harry guessed that made sense, but the bones were so small he didn't see how something as big as this snake could live off them for long.

Ed didn't give him much time to think about it, striding off into the darkness again. Harry scrambled to keep up. His heart climbed into his throat every time they reached another bend in the tunnel, terrified that they'd stumble on the living snake without warning, but they didn't encounter anything else.

At the end of the tunnel, Ed guided him cautiously forward to stare up at a pair of entwined serpents carved into what looked like a solid wall. Harry licked his lips and cleared his throat, trying to gather his nerve as the emeralds in the snakes eyes twinkled malevolently down at him.

" _Open_ ," he finally hissed. He wasn't sure if it was his fear or the Parseltongue language that made his voice so faint.

Once the wall cracked open, Ed shoved Harry behind him again. The chamber on the other side was dimly lit with a weird greenish glow, and Ed silently shook out the light at the tip of his wand as they stepped slowly inside. He didn't put it away, though, and he kept turning his head to look into the unmoving shadows as they passed by towering pillars carved with more serpents.

"This place is creepy," Harry whispered, but Ed gestured him back into silence.

The dull light wasn't enough to let them see very far ahead of them, so they weren't able to see the huge statue until the came to the last pair of pillars. Harry craned his neck back to take in the ancient-looking face, then let his view slide down the long beard that fell nearly down to the ground. And that was when he finally noticed the tiny red-haired figured laying in a heap in between the statue's feet.

"Ginny!" Harry gasped in alarm, jerking forward to run to her side. Ed's arm shot out before he could take more than a step.

"Get behind a pillar and stay there," he said sharply.

Harry swallowed down his protests with an effort and did as Ed ordered, but he leaned around the pillar to watch as Ed strode forward into the gloom. In the more open space at the end of the chamber, Harry could see him kneel by Ginny's side and carefully turn her over. Harry chewed nervously on his bottom lip as Ed slowly ran his wand over her body.

Nothing else happened for a long minute. Then there was the barest hint of a whisper and Ed spun around with his wand held ready for a fight. A tall, dark-haired boy strolled into view, disturbingly relaxed for being in the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry strained to hear whatever conversation he and Ed were having. Their voices were lost in the depths of the chamber, but he couldn't miss the shaky letters the boy traced into the air. The letters were backwards to him, and it took him a moment to puzzle out the first name, but when "TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE" rearranged itself into "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT" he had no trouble recognizing the name of the man who had murdered his parents.

He let out a gasp that was too loud in the silence of the chamber, but if Tom Riddle noticed he was distracted by Ed attacking him. Harry watched hopefully, but it seemed that the magic had no effect on whatever Riddle was, and the Chamber echoed with chilling laughter. The snarl on Ed's face was terrifying, but worse still were his wide eyes as the statue's mouth dropped slowly open and twenty feet of snake came slithering out of the gaping hole.

Harry knew he should close his eyes, that leaving them open was risking catching the basilisk's gaze and dying instantly, but he couldn't look away as Ed cast hopeless curse after hopeless curse at the serpent. Each spell bounced off its scales, bursting against the walls and pillars surrounding Ed and carving deep gouges into the solid rock. Ed quickly gave up on the spells as the snake struck out at him, rolling out of the way and narrowly avoiding being eaten. The light of his alchemy surrounded him as he stood again, his right arm transforming into the blade Harry had seen only once before.

The fight was mesmerizing. The few times he'd seen Ed fight had been brief and nerve-wracking, and it hadn't even occurred to Harry that the man wasn't even fighting his hardest before. But against the basilisk he was absolutely terrifying, moving faster than Harry could always follow and narrowly avoiding more attacks than he could count. Ed seemed to be aiming to blind it first, but Harry had no idea how he was going to manage that without looking into its eyes. The basilisk, on the other hand, seemed to be getting more frustrated than ever, weaving around pillars and striking wildly while its tail swept over the floor as if it was desperate to knock Ed off his feet.

Harry had to duck behind the pillar as a blurry object came flying toward him unexpectedly, and he spun to look when it landed behind him with a dull thump. It looked like…the diary?

Harry glance back toward the fight to see if anybody would take notice of him, but Riddle seemed to be focused on hissing directions at the basilisk. He darted over to the diary and gathered it up, then ducked behind the closest pillar again in case Riddle or the basilisk looked over and saw him. He flipped through the book hopefully, but the pages looked no different than before. The last time he'd seen Riddle, he'd been nothing but a memory inside the pages of these books. Was it possible that he'd somehow come out of here?

There was a faint clattering sound and a cut-off cry that sounded like Ed, and Harry looked up with a start. Inches from the pillar Harry had been hiding behind a moment ago, Ed and the basilisk were silhouetted against the gloomy light of the open chamber, and Ed had his right arm buried almost to the shoulder in the roof of the snake's mouth. The snake was dead, its eyes nearly gouged out and dripping gore onto Ed, and Harry almost breathed a sigh of relief.

Until he noticed that Ed's left arm was stuck in the creature's mouth too, and that one was impaled by one of the venomous fangs.

Ed jerked back harshly, freeing himself and stumbling backwards as the basilisk keeled over, but his arm was dripping blood and he seemed weak from the bloodloss and the battle. He tripped over something behind him, falling ungracefully to the floor, and a loose fang rolled slowly in Harry's direction. Harry stepped out from his hiding place uncertainly, clutching the diary in numb fingers and hoping that Ed would be okay.

"Harry Potter," Tom Riddle said silkily, looming out of the shadows behind the basilisk's still-twitching body. "I wondered why you weren't here."

Harry had no idea what to say or do. He simply _couldn't_ leave Ed again, not when he was on the floor bleeding out in an attempt to protect him, but what was he supposed to do against an enemy that Ed hadn't been able to touch?

His eyes fell on the basilisk fang. If he was right, if Riddle really _had_ emerged from the diary somehow…

Hardly aware of what he was doing, Harry covered his hand with the edge of his sleeve and dove for the fang. His knuckles scraped painfully on the stone floor and the venom coating the fang started burning through the flimsy cloth almost instantly, but he didn't let go. Riddle moved toward him, one hand reaching out and a furious snarl on his face. Harry ignored him. He looked down at the diary instead, raised the fang high, and struck the cover with as much force as he could.

The scream Riddle released was unearthly. Ink poured from the diary, staining Harry's hands and clothes and pooling on the floor around him while the scream echoed through the chamber and Riddle writhed as if he'd been hit with an Unforgiveable.

"Huh," Ed said faintly once the boy had disappeared completely. "Nice work."

Harry tried to smile at the compliment, but he was too worried to feel accomplished. Ed looked like he was having trouble moving, even his automail barely functional as he pawed futilely at his suit jacket. Harry rushed forward to help, feeling awkward as they pushed his jacket open together, but the inside of it was lined with little pockets and an assortment of bottles. Not many of the pockets were full. Ed managed to tug out a tiny red bottle with a faint growl, but Harry had to pull the cork out for him.

A faint moan from the other side of the chamber distracted Harry from wondering what was in the bottle. Ginny was awake. He left Ed to drink the contents, since he seemed capable of doing that on his own, and darted over to her as she slowly sat up. When Harry fell to his knees beside her, she took one look at him and burst into tears.

Harry wasn't used to girls crying on him and didn't really know what to say, so he just pulled her into a hug and hoped the comfort would help. Eventually, very slowly, Ed came over to them, frowning as he knelt beside them as well. Harry noticed that he'd wrapped his hurt arm with something, but blood had already soaked through the fabric and he was still looking a lot paler than normal.

"Didn't remember any healing potions," Ed explained to Harry's worried frown. "We need to get out of here before I can't get us back into the castle. Are you okay, Ginny? Can you stand?"

Ginny pulled away from Harry and, though tears were still pouring down her face, she nodded jerkily to Ed. "I'm sorry," she added in a trembling voice. "I-I tried to tell you, but then Harry was— Riddle m-made me—"

"It's fine, Ginny," Ed said, getting back to his feet and offering her his automail hand. "You can tell us about it later, okay? Let's get you up to Poppy and your parents first."

Ginny accepted his hand and stood up slowly, looking even paler than Ed even though she wasn't obviously injured. Harry hopped to his feet too and hovered in between them as they made their way back down the long corridor to the pipe to Myrtle's bathroom.

Ed cast some sort of spell that made Harry feel strangely weightless, and he and Ginny grinned at each other as all three of them linked hands. Another spell had them zooming up the pipe as quickly as if they were each on a Nimbus, but when they popped out and landed on solid ground again, Ed's leg gave out under him.

"Oh!" Myrtle gasped, jerking back from them all. "You're alive."

"Unfortunately," Ed grumbled.

Harry and Ginny had to help him back to his feet, and it was painfully obvious that he was trying not to lean on them as they trekked through the corridors to the Headmaster's office. Harry was grateful for the moving staircase that brought them to the door, and he knocked and pushed it open in a rush.

" _Ginny!_ " "Brother!"

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley reached them first, pulling their daughter away from their haphazard huddle and not seeming to notice when Ed tilted off-balance at the lack of support. Thankfully, Al was right behind them, catching Ed around the middle and practically dragging him over to a couch that hadn't been in the room the last time Harry had been there.

"'m fine," Ed slurred even as he slumped into the couch with Roy's arms around him and Al hovering over him. "Jus' a little bite."

"You ridiculous idiot," Roy snapped. He didn't even seem to notice the muck covering Ed from head to toe as he turned Ed's face to look him in the eye. He frowned at whatever he saw. "I'm going to _kill_ you once Al's finished fixing you."

"Counterproductive," Ed muttered.

Somebody cleared their throat, and Harry looked away from the scene to see that Professor Dumbledore had returned to the castle while they'd been underground. He was looking at the Amestrians with a strange half-smile, but when he spoke he turned his gaze on Harry instead.

"Perhaps an explanation of the afternoon's events is in order," he said calmly.

Harry glanced at Ginny, who was sitting between her parents and still wiping away tears, and then towards Ed still being fussed over by his husband and brother. Neither of them were in any shape to tell the story, so he took a deep breath and began.

He talked until his voice was hoarse, and still wished he had more information to give the Headmaster. The old man looked faintly disappointed by something, though Harry had no way of telling what, and he didn't bother to explain himself. Instead, as Harry's story wound to a halting close, he simply pulled out some ink and parchment, and said something about recalling Hagrid from Azkaban.

As he started writing, the door to the office burst open so hard it bounced off the wall, and Lucius Malfoy strode into the room like he owned the castle. Scurrying after him, looking utterly terrified and still trying to polish his master's shoes, was none other than the houself that had been bothering Harry all year.

Harry barely held back a gasp, wondering what this could possibly mean. Why would his best friend's dad send a house elf to him in secret in a failed attempt to protect him, when Lucius could just have told Roy about his suspicions? Harry listened to the conversation between Lucius and the Headmaster, hoping that it would answer his questions, and by the end of it he was nearly as pale as the man himself.

He'd known the Malfoys weren't fond of Muggleborns, but that he would actively attempt to kill them surprised him. It probably shouldn't have. He was being naïve to think Lucius would have turned over a new leaf, obviously, because it was clear now that he was still firmly on Lord Voldemort's side. No matter how hard he pretended not to be.

When Lucius finally swept out of the room, calling Dobby to come after him, Harry got a brilliant idea.

"Can I have this, Professor?" Harry asked eagerly, one hand already on the diary that was sitting innocently on the corner of the Headmaster's desk. Dumbledore smiled at him, looking like he already knew what Harry was up to.

"Certainly, Harry," he said cheerfully.

Harry thanked him quickly and rushed from the room despite hearing his dad call after him. Just outside the door, he hurriedly yanked off his shoe and one of his disgusting socks, shoved the diary in it, and took off after Lucius.

The confrontation went about as well as Harry imagined, but in the end Dobby was freed and he'd made a new unlikely friend. It was even worth Al coming up behind him and nearly twisting his ear off.

xxxxx

With Harry's heroic attempt to save Ginny Weasley netting him another ridiculous amount of points, Slytherin House ended up winning the House Cup yet again. Harry and his friends left for the train in high spirits, promising to do even better next year, and Harry wasn't grounded this time because Ed had dragged him into the Chamber himself. That meant Harry could invite his friends out to Amestris over the summer, and even though only Draco and Blaise seemed certain that they'd be able to come, he was pleased that this summer was looking better than the previous.

When they train pulled into King's Cross station, they all went their separate ways. It was only when Harry was alone with Ed that Ron Weasley approached him, looking awkward and nervous separated from his usual gaggle of Gryffindors.

"Uh, hey," Ron said, his hands in his pockets. He scuffed the ground with a dingy sneaker and frowned at Harry with uncertainty.

"…Hi," Harry said, crossing his arms.

Ron looked away from him, scanning the crowd as if he was trying to find someone, but the rest of his family wasn't exactly easy to miss. At one point he even looked right at them and grimaced, waving them away frantically before he turned back to Harry again with clear reluctance.

"Look," he finally muttered. "I'm not saying I like you. But you didn't really know Ginny and you tried to save her anyway, and I figure anyone who does that can't be _all_ bad. So…truce?"

Ron held out a hand, which was shaking slightly. Harry frowned at the other boy, trying to gauge his sincerity. Ron had been an absolute jerk to him for two years straight, and the dislike was mutual…but there was no point in having enemies in the school if he didn't _have_ to. He smiled slightly and took the offered hand, which was clammy and gross with nerves.

"Truce," Harry agreed, his chest warm with happiness even though Ron didn't smile back.


End file.
